49 copies info only

[aussiesauce]

Publishamerica does not have a policy rquiring authors seeing release from contracts to purchase 49 copies of their book.

BUT, almost every author I know has been told they must purchase all remaining stocks in order to be released and all rights returned. The amount of "stocks" is 49.

POD means PRINT ON DEMAND. there should never be 49 copies sitting on a shelf.

A friend of mine was informed there was no POLICY to purchase books if an author seeks release. It is stated in their contracts that the author MUST BUY REMAINING "STOCKS" BEWARE - BEWARE

[XThe NavigatorX]

I haven't had any dealings with Publish America, but if you're an author who feels as if you've been scammed by them, this particular issue would be the key. If they've forced people to purchase copies in order to get out of their contract (and the contract says that's what they have to do) and PA actually doesn't have these copies, but instead orders them from Lightning Source so they can eek out a little more money.... That's a felony. That's them going to prison like the guys from Northwest Publishing Company.

And it would be simple to prove, too. The author provides the correspondence from PA. A subpoena to Lightning Source. That's all it would take. I'm by no means a PA supporter, but the fact this hasn't been done before suggests maybe they really do have all those copies.

[marky48]

What stocks? The only way I can think of is whatever Ingram had on the shelf. Usually one copy. Where is this in the contract?

[aussiesauce]

Par. 24 "When in the judgement of the Publisher, the public demand for the work is no longer sufficient to warrant its continued manufacture, the Publisher may disconiut furher manufacture and destroy any or all plates, books, sheets and electric files without any liability in connection therewith to the Author. However, the Publisher agrees to notify the Author of such decision in writing, and will offer to transfer to the Author the work and its rights in the copyrights thereon, the plates (if any), the bound copies and sheet stock (if any) on the following terms F.O.B. point of shipment: the plates, at their value for old metal, the engravings (to be used only in the work) at one-half (1/2) their orginal cost, the bound stock at one-half (1/2) the list price, and the sheet stock at the cost of gathering, folding, sewing and preparing for shipment, all without royalties. In the latter evenent, unless the Author shall, within 30 days, accept said offer and pay the amount set forth in said writing, the Publisher may dispose of the work, copyrights, plates, books, sheets and other property without futher liability for royalties or otherwise."

First line of last paragraph of a registered letter signed by Willem Meiners, "I am informing you herewith that we have currently 49 copies of your book in stock."

POD - PRINT ON DEMAND - no copies are to be in stock!

[marky48]

Well, I don't have a firm grip on this situation yet, but so far I find nothing of the sort in the contract except this gem: "The publisher, in the event that public demand is no longer sufficient to warrant manufacture, the publisher may discontinue manufactue and destroy all plates, books, electronic files etc." Well, they offer to sell the whole shebang back to the author at 1/2 the original price. What's that mean, fifty cents? I was paid a dollar for the work. I'll run the thing by J. Macdonald in full text and see what he makes of it, but I may try to break my contract to see what PA says.

[marky48]

That's the one. He says you, or whoever, had 49 in stock? If that's true we've got them. I'll test it.

[James D Macdonald]

While I'd love to see the full-text of a typical PA contract, I'm not a lawyer, don't play one on TV, and don't intend to start practicing law without a license.

That being said.... " in the event that public demand is no longer sufficient to warrant manufacture...." Under the PoD model, even one order is sufficient to warrant manufacture. That just plain doesn't make sense.

The bit that's been quoted looks a lot like the beginning of a reversion clause, the part of a standard publishing contract in which the author gets his rights back free and clear at no cost to himself, but is offered a chance to buy the warehouse stock and manufacturing materials for his book at a reduced price when the publisher is no longer publishing or promoting that book. Should the author not want to buy the books and plates and such, into the Dumpster they go. In either case the author is free to sell the rights to the work to some other publisher.

The whole thing is odd. With PoD production there are no printing plates to be bought at scrap-metal prices (that's a holdover from hot-lead days) and low public demand is a norm. It's difficult to see exactly what they're getting at here.

[vstrauss]

It's pretty clear what's being got at here: it's a way to make money on the back end.

The PA contract is nonstandard in a number of respects. The out of print/reversion clause is just one example. Like some other parts of the contract, it seems to be based at least in part on out-of-date contract language (hence the stuff about plates and engravings), but the most important thing to note about the clause is that it ties rights reversion to author payments:

"...unless the author shall, within 30 days, accept said offer and pay the amount set forth in said writing, the Publisher may dispose of the work, COPYRIGHTS [my emphasis], plates, books, sheets and other property without further liability for royalties or otherwise."

PA appears to interpret this clause as meaning the author must pay for "overstock". I've received a number of reports from authors who, on being released from their contracts, were asked to pay for books in stock (in some cases, a lot more than just 49 books). In one case where the author refused to pay, PA interpreted the sentence quoted above to mean that it retained the publishing rights granted in the contract. Now, you could certainly argue that the sentence doesn't mean this at all, since "rights" and "copyright" are not the same thing, and PA never takes possession of your copyright. However, you might have to hire a lawyer in order to do so.

I don't know of any commercial publisher that ties rights reversion to author payments. The author may be offered the chance to purchase overstock and other materials at a reduced rate, but if they don't, it has no bearing on whether or not they get their publishing rights back.

This is one reason, by the way, that it isn't helpful to get a general practice attorney to vet a publishing contract for you. There are so many odd and specialized things about publishing that occur nowhere else, and you need to know about these in order to judge the fairness of a contract, and what you need to negotiate. A contracts attorney may not know enough about publishing to be able to properly advise you. You need someone well-versed in publishing.

- Victoria
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

[marky48]

That's what thought; you could buy said stock back at 1/2 price, if not they go into the trash. I don't think they can hold the rights hostage for that, but I'm sure many would buy their books again if told to. I may dump them myself to find out. No longer promoting is a laugh too. When do they ever promote?

[RebelWriter]

This is shocking. Does anyone know a lawyer? You mean they could take our books, and sell them to some other publisher and take all the money? Since they would keep our rights? POD is supposed to have only what is ordered. No extras. The printer for them has only 5 on shelf from the first time they get our manuscripts. If we went to everywhere that PA authors are mad and want out. Contacted them. Perhaps we could get enough of them together to make a mark. Can contact Ingrams and find out exactly how many of our books they have now. Then send the email to PA and tell them since Ingrams is their printer, no others count. Ask them what promotion have they done, want proof of it. Didnt' everyone think our books would be in real stores?

[marky48]

Rebel,
Ingram is the distributor; Lighting Source is the printer. I don't know where can one find disgruntled PA authors? Is there a watering hole somehere? I'll go there if you can find the place. PA authors are generally clueless so I think I can count about four that have come here. That's not many. I'm open to suggestions. Victoria; how many do you have?

[aussiesauce]

lots of ex-Pa people here.
Also, this group has done more to bring about changes at PublishAmerica than any others. Victoria and Dave frequent and watch what is going on.

www.mindsightseries.com/c...?pg=topics (http://www.mindsightseries.com/cgi/discus/discus.cgi?pg=topics)

[emeraldcite]

you could ask jenna to set up a disgruntled pa writers (or maybe a disgruntled POD publishing) section.

[James D Macdonald]

you could ask jenna to set up a disgruntled pa writers (or maybe a disgruntled POD publishing) section.

There is one already: it's called the Take It Outside Board.

[marky48]

"There is one already: it's called the Take It Outside Board." Right.

And as the Red Queen said, "We have to run as fast as we can to stay where we are."

[vstrauss]

>> This is shocking. Does anyone know a lawyer? You mean they could take our books, and sell them to some other publisher and take all the money?<<

Yes, they could, if on contract termination they offered you overstock or anything else you needed to pay for, and you refused to purchase it. While not even close to industry standard and (in my opinion) extremely exploitive, this is NOT illegal or actionable, because it's in the contract--the contract YOU signed.

Not to sound like a broken record or anything, but this is the reason you need get a publishing contract vetted by SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT PUBLISHING, not your basic garden-variety attorney or your amateur literary agent or even your trusted friend. I'll bet that the horribleness of this particular clause blows right past most lawyers...because unless you're versed in publishing contract terms, you don't know how nonstandard it is.

I know that some authors are convinced that the 49 or however many copies they're asked to buy are conjured up by PA, whether they actually existed prior to contract termination or not. There's no proof of this, one way or another (though I have to say I share their suspicions). That said, many POD-based publishers print in batches rather than one at a time, and keep stock on hand--as, I understand, does Ingram. So overstock is not an inconceivable concept.

However, even if your POD-based publisher does have overstock, and offers you the chance to buy it at a reduced price, nothing should hinge on your purchase. If you don't want it, the publisher can sell it off as it pleases--and you should get your rights back free and clear.

>>Didnt' everyone think our books would be in real stores?<<

Again, folks: get your publishing contract vetted by someone who knows publishing. For people who are familiar with industry standards and contract terms, a read of PA's contract plus a look at its website makes quite clear the fact that it's a POD-based publisher that likely follows business practices that ensure that its books won't be routinely stocked on bookstore shelves.

There's an article in the current issue of "Poets and Writers" magazine by a PA author who compares PA's publishing process to that of a micro-press, and concludes that it isn't much different in many respects--notably the companies' ability to distribute and promote, which in both cases is more or less nonexistent. It's an interesting article by someone who went to PA with his eyes wide open...and as a result, it doesn't say the kinds of things about PA that PA likes its authors to say (i.e., that PA is a "traditional" publisher no different from Random House). It's worth looking up.

- Victoria

[marky48]

It blew by me, but I'm no lawyer. Without an advance who would bother to take it to one? We should have seen PA for what it appeared to be and not what we thought it might be. That's called wishful thinking. I'm guilty. They said they promoted. Since I knew I couldn't promote that's what got me, but I nailed them on the shelf issue before release. They wouldn't let me out, so I made them include the TOC and they ran with it. My rights that is.

Most of the writers at the mindsight site are satisfied PA authors still in the clueless phase. HB Marcus is on the prowl there in PA's defense too. There is one writer, pacwriter, who claims to have gotten out of his. I told them to come here and post.

I don't know what will come of any of this frankly, but it's worth a shot. My PA book is also an iUniverse book still in play there. Really PA has nothing on me except an edition for more money that won't sell. Victoria we are in your debt for the valuable public service and information you provide. Let's see who else shows up to the fray. But expect more Canada James's. Deniers are inevitable.

[DaveKuzminski]

That non-standard clause referred to by Victoria in the previous post to this is only one of the reasons why Preditors & Editors (tm) refers to the PublishAmerica contract as poor.

[marky48]

This just in from the wizard patrol at mindsight where I left two messages and I quote:

"Here comes the PA Bash Brigade again. Mark York has all the answers y'all. Listen to him and end up as miserable as this creep seems to be."

Yeah we'll win this one. I think we're making progress.

[pacwriter]

Yes, I got a release from the contract but according to PA lost my rights when I did not purchase the "49" copies. My advise to anyone who seeks a release from their contract with PublishAmerica is to consult a lawyer. By all means save every communication with PublishAmerica - email and snail-mail. Keep a telephone log if you talk to anyone at PublishAmerica.

My contract with PublishAmerica dates to the time they were merging with Erica House (1998) and they have the rights for 70 years. The AmErica House logo appears on the back cover. Like many of you I was totally ignorant of publishing contracts. When PublishAmerica said, "We are a traditional publisher" I took that to mean that the contract they offered would be a "standard" contract like a "traditional" publisher would offer. If being deceived is grounds for revoking a contract, then we should all be allowed out.

I have a friend who is a lawyer looking at the contract. Like Victoria said, when you sign a contract you are agreeing to the terms of that contract. It doesn't matter if you understand the contract or not, it is still a legal binding agreement. Having said that, consider this; both parties of a contract are bound by that contract. There are expectations which have to be met and if the stated expectations are not met, then the contract is void.

There are several who are members at Mindsight or have passed by Mindsight who have gotten releases from their contracts. It is not impossible but it is very unpleasant.

If you feel the book you have under contract is not your best work, then drop it from memory and write your best work at let the book under contract drift with the PublishAmerica tide.

Contrary to what is posted at PublishAmerica, there are not 5,000 happy authors under contract. In the years I have been associated with Publishamerica I have talked with many unhappy authors with PublishAmerica contracts. Victoria has probably encountered more.

[RebelWriter]

I went to mindsight. Was shocked, but not at what I read. Even if you get out of your contract, they still sell your books for years? Can sell your book to another publisher, and take the money. They are giving our books away.
Okay, an idea. How about we do some surfing the net, to other sites, and contact all those disgrunted PA authors we can. Get them all together. Maybe write out a long email, with all of us on it. Stating our desire, to get out. Why, and stick together. We should be able to get a lot of people. The warning site, and mindsight has people who feel like we do. That lawyer, that was mentioned. When he finds an out, we can use it. Publicity would also help us. Spearhead a revolt against PA. Should be able to stop them from selling more books, and get our rights back without buying anything.
Any ideas? Even if we have to pass around a written letter, and all sign it. Make copies and put it on sites as well.

[aussiesauce]

send an email to sixty mintues II and share your Publishamerica experience

60II@cbsnews.com

[marky48]

Good idea. I'll do it.

[aussiesauce]

60II@cbsnews.com
send an email to sixty minutes to and share your pa experience

[aussiesauce]

sorry mate for the double post

jumped over the puddle for a second page

[marky48]

watch out for those billabongs. It's a good idea mate; I'm on it.

[RebelWriter]

might I suggest 48 hours investigation too.
48hours@cbsnews.com hit them everywhere we can. Bring on the heat. Tell everyone about the plan who wants out. Enough emails and they will start checking it out, most likely.

[marky48]

That's an option but these shows are linked. There is a good chance the producers will forward the story down the line from one to the other. Feedback from mindspring folks is limited. One of the more vociforous complainers there mentioned that the idea was to get PA to change. He is sadly mistaken.

[RebelWriter]

Its sad that they can't see they are being eaten up. They think PA is going to change. Leopards don't change their spots at all.

I have been doing some research. Heard that there are a few options I hadn't thought of. Not sure of them though. May or may not help.

internet fraud..concerning their site, and their claims there.

<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/index.htm" target="top">www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/index</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-- (http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp) has a lot of info on crimes of persuasion...

Too many of the writers don't leave any way to contact them, except on the board. Going to keep searching for more people to contact, and see how many we can get together.

[astonwest]

I dare say it isn't that they can't see, but that it's easier to just move on to the next book, and find a new publisher...

What's mindspring?

[marky48]

It's a forum like this. That may be true but it leaves crooks in place. Why let them get away with it?

[pacwriter]

Mindsight hosted by C.E. Winterland
a writer forum

www.mindsightseries.com/c...?pg=topics (http://www.mindsightseries.com/cgi/discus/discus.cgi?pg=topics)

[RebelWriter]

Most of the authors at PA are like sheep. They don't seem to honestly see or care what is happening. If you have ever read their board. A few of us see without blinders on. Want to help others, and free ourselves. Other writers of other publishers have stood up and made a difference. If we don't try, and all the authors who see don't stand up, and be counted we all lose. Marky, and Pacwriter and I and others know. Most writers who give up, do so cause they believe they can do nothing. That no one cares. Will lose, you can't lose if you don't try. I care about my book, and don't want to lose it. But if it takes that to win..so be it. I have others.

[marky48]

I just came from mindsight. It's sheep central there too. The basic problem here is a POD scam artist took rights based on a quasi-traditional promise. The rights were what they were after, but they provided nothing in return. That's fraud. This is not about relativist dream quashing, but I suspect I'll be bounced from here too after tonight, since I can't offend POD writers without rebuke. It's sad really.

[RebelWriter]

No matter what keep in touch. You have my email address. This isn't over. Can we prove Fraud? A lot of companies that are POD are honest. A bad apple makes all look bad. What else can be done? Would it also be internet fraud? PA will move to stop us. You know that. They know we aren't lying about them. Only stating the truth. But we know how they react to that.

[astonwest]

Howdy, Pac... >D

I was actually being sarcastic in asking, because I knew it was Mindsight and not mindspring...

Simply because folks don't want to jump in on your bandwagon, Mr. York, is no reason to call names...like I said, the goal is to get a second book with a better publisher, and so on...

[marky48]

What names? Sheep? Some people are squishy on principles. That's not illegal, just not admirable.

[FM St George]

righto - just wrote them and told them what a good experience I've had to date with PA... no complaints from me!

;)

[lillymaytree]

Just "checking in" so that you may add my name to your list of writers seeking a release from PA. I have only begun my campaign but am willing to become part of your forces, and will do my part for the 60 minutes II idea. It seems to me from what I have heard from others that there are several versions of the PA contract in circulation, depending on when the person became involved with them. Mine – I regret to say – is the older version of "lifetime + renewals." However, I am pursuing a misrepresentation angle, as well as looking into a few loopholes in the copyright laws that may prove helpful, regarding defamation of character, fair market pricing, and the definition of "first edition"… which is all PA lays claim to (They do state, however, that THEIR definition of first edition includes all printings and revised copies for an indefinite period).

Here's to victory.

Lilly

Anyone wishing to contact me on this matter may do so through lillymaytree@msn.com

[RebelWriter]

welcome Lilly,
Some seem to think they can sing the praises of PA, but we can't say the opposite if we want. Free speech only goes one way. Pass the word, the more the better. Also BBB, and the internet fraud, and anyone else anyone can come up with, contact them. PA wants publicity? We will help them get it. Let us know what your lawyer says. It might help us all.

[sfsassenach]

and unless you can find an attorney who'll agree with you that what PA's doing is fraud, your efforts will probably come to naught.

I really can't imagine "48 Hours", "60 Minutes", etc. getting het up about PA. It's not a very sexy story. There are no interesting victims or villains, and nobody's lost their life savings or had their lives ruined.

It's just a new spin on the old vanity press scam.

[lillymaytree]

and they need lots to keep it running. So, it's all in how you present it, I suppose. Which shouldn't be too impossible, considering that's what we writers are supposed to be good at. Those I know who HAVE gotten out of their contract have done so through media pressure rather than lawyers... so, even PA has their Achilles heel.

Now we just need a Hercules.

Lilly

[RebelWriter]

anyone know Hercules number? Need some power. Attorney general in Maryland also has complaints against them so I hear, and Better business bureau. But they have no power. It would have to be where a lot of attention would be drawn to it. Don't know if even that would work. There are lawyers out there who would. But theres the money problem. Who has it to pay them? I had suggested a petition, signed by all, and our complaints. What reaction we have had from PA. To post it everywhere, and send them a copy. More writers the better. Then mailed to them. Seems they don't bother with emails. A letter filled with facts, so we don't face legal problems. Could use some famous people, but none got taken by PA.

[MysticWolf1]

If the MD Attorney General has complaints, then you might want to try the FTC as well. They seem to do a good job at getting companies who misrepensent themselves to "cease and desist," and in fact, it's not just the companies, it's the owners. If PA has earned any profit from misrepensentation, then I think the FTC might be interested if they have enough complaints.

The website is www.ftc.gov (http://www.ftc.gov) and they have online complaint forms.

You can also check to see if they have anything on PA by Typnig in "publish america" in the search box on the site.

Due to the nature of this, the ppl at P&E and Writer Beware may need to provide what info they have regarding PA.

The more info available, the better chances of getting these ppl shut down.

BTW: I'm not a PA author, or even a published author; but, I am an author writing a ms. Eventhough I have zero experience in the publishing world, I knew (for some reason,) that paying to get published or represented was WRONG! I don't know how I knew this. I mean look, for those who have jobs... Do you pay the employer for the time you put in? Do you pay to be given the priviledge of working there? OF COURSE NOT! They PAY YOU for your time, and that's the way publishing works too!

Sorry if I'm not supposed to be in here, since I'm not a PA author, but still, I hope I helped. :)

[marky48]

Sounds like you belong here to me. Good advice. We'll do it.

[RebelWriter]

You are welcome MysticWolf,
good idea you have there. Will take a look into that. A lot is coming out that PA will not like. It is good that others outside of authors understand. Good advice or helpful info is never unwanted. Thank you for the idea. I know those at those sites you mentioned would not mind turning over all they have in their files. I just wish more understood its not sour grapes, but honest people wanting what was promised, for all our hard work. Some say we want it all for doing nothing. We have done all we could. But we are limited. So we seek what is right.

[marky48]

Filed.

[RebelWriter]

did a search at FTC, nothing on PA, nothing pending at the moment. We need to draw up a letter, with all the details in it. Everything. To send to these places. So we don't leave anything out. One big one, and all our contact info?

[marky48]

Go to the ftc and file your own in your own words as a start. That's the least any can do.

[MysticWolf1]

Well, thanks for making me feel welcome. Sorry that the FTC doesn't have anything (yet) on PA. But even so, looking at their case files is very interesting. FTC does a great job of shutting down scammers. Look at all the actions they have taken! Those PDF files are very, very interesting.

FTC seems interested in those who misrepresent what they do; meaning that if they don't deliver what they advertise, thereby earning profits from that mispresentation.

Some of those cases I've read...dang! FTC goes all out! Not only do they seek "cease and desist" but they also seek the disengorgment of ill-gotten gains! Some of those "companies" are only a one-man operation. Poor sap...LOL. Read through some of those cases (both present and past---they have an archive). Great story ideas there! How someone devises a grand scheme to empty the wallets of poor, unsuspecting sheep, and then the govt comes and shuts them down and forces them to pay! LOL, it's great stuff.

I read through some of those cases and I cannot imagine anyone falling for such schemes--But, they do, and that's why the FTC is around.

I for one have nothing to gain from the outcome of the PA thing, but I hate seeing innocent people get suckered into something, and that's why I felt compelled to post here! I'll follow along and hope you all achieve the desired result!

[marky48]

Thanks again for the inspiration. I worked for the government for years and ususally I report such things right off, like the Nigerian e-mail scam, but this thing has dragged on. I'm confident in my legal status on the claim against PA. I gave them the rights in return for something and got nothing. It was a slip-up on my part, but still illegal on their part. FTC will take this very seriously as all federal agencies do. That's their job.

[sfsassenach]

Marky sai: " I gave them the rights in return for something and got nothing"

Just what did the contract say?? What haven't they done?

[marky48]

It's difficult to determine who is harder to convince, PA people or the writers here, who seem to be saying "you got what you deserve moron," but let me try.

9. "The publisher agrees to distribute, at his discretion, for purposes of publicity and or review, promotional information pertaining to the said literary work, to publications throughout the United States and/or the Dominion of Canada, or elsewhere. Distribution of this promotional material shall be at the publisher's own cost and expense and to media outlets of the publisher's own choice. The author agrees that excerpts of the said literary work be included in this promotional information, and agrees, furthermore, that the Publisher may, at the Publisher's election and discretion cause to promote the said literary work,as designated in any electronic format, and that the Publisher may sell or cause to sell copies the said literary work in any electronic format."

And: "The Publisher agrees to pay the Author a return as specified in provision#3[the royalty tiered scale]of this agreement of the sales price of every copy in any electronic format that may be sold and for which the Publisher shall receive payment in money." Nowhere is the actual price of said work ever mentioned.

So I suppose I'm to interpret "discretion" as never? Only if we feel like it and we never do? I don't think so. Interviews will determine that. I have a nice Great white Shark for Mr. Meiners to meet. And now back to reporting the Boston Massacre.

[James D Macdonald]

Alas, Marky, I'm afraid that "at his discretion" and "at the Publisher's election and discretion" mean exactly that: "If we feel like it."

Compare the PA contract with this contract: <a href="http://www.sharpeworld.com/song_poems/" target="_new">http://www.sharpeworld.com/song_poems/</a> You'll want to read everything with a critical eye. It's enlightening.

Compare the promises. Compare the way the ads, the testimonials, the contracts, are worded. Compare the authors. There's nothing new here, folks.

This story also relates: <a href="http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1311999" target="_new">http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1311999</a>

This may look a little far afield from publishing and PublishAmerica, but trust me, it isn't.

[marky48]

You've used this before, and I think it's valid, although not universal. If no one ever has received this "discretion," it would raise many red flags at regulatory agencies. As you have said, you're not a lawyer, and neither am I. This is clearly stated in the complaint. But it may come down to that. I'll take the decision of an expert on the matter, but point taken.

The release form every production company makes us sign would also make you wince, but everyone signs them, otherwise nothing is read. And these aren't crooks.

[sfsassenach]

but you clearly have gotten what you contracted. You made a poor decision. But I'm not convinced that you were defrauded--at least in the legal sense.

[vstrauss]

>> And: "The Publisher agrees to pay the Author a return as specified in provision#3[the royalty tiered scale]of this agreement of the sales price of every copy in any electronic format that may be sold and for which the Publisher shall receive payment in money." Nowhere is the actual price of said work ever mentioned.<<

The actual price of a book is never mentioned in a publishing contract, nor is it an item of negotiation--it really is at the publisher's discretion. This is not a concern with a commercial publisher; since it is actually interested in selling as many books as possible, you have a good expection that your book will be priced competitively with others in the market.

Many PA authors, skimming over this clause, have taken "sales price" to mean "the sale price printed on the book". But it's actually a sneaky way of saying "net" or "publisher's actual receipts". If royalties are paid on gross or cover price, the contract will say something like "cover price" or "retail price" or "suggested customer price".

- Victoria
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

[marky48]

Good points Victoria as always. It is sticky. Unless sfs is a lawyer, I'm not terribly informed by that response. I got nothing; review copies not sent; promotion et al discretion or not. That will be for experts to analyze. Of course one could always post legitimate contract clauses covering the same things for illustraition. I'll send it to the business law prof.

[RebelWriter]

Marky, Working on my letter to FTC. Want to not leave anything out. Then I guess its up to them. With a few files that Victoria has, that should help. Since the attoney general see nothing to get them involved. That leaves the FTC. They seem to be pretty through in their investigations, and quick to do something. Not sure about lawyers. Lets hope that our letters get the right results.

[marky48]

I think that's all that can be done since the majority are satisfied or too downtrodden to care. Many ridicule even trying or deny the whole thing. Legally who knows? Ethically, I'm in the right. In short, standard political discourse. We'll see.

[poorboy2]

I am a Publish America author. I can ascertain that my contract was looked over by an attorney and a literary agent/attorney. (separate entitites) They found the contract in order and encouraged me to sign. PA did not charge me a dime. They offered me an advance and are covering all print expenses.

The only possible problems seen in the contract, from the lawyer viewpoint, was the fact that the contract is seven years, which is longer than industry standard and the advance isn't as high as the larger publishing houses (Random/Tor/Harlequin/Etc.) The percentage offered me escalates from 8% and goes up to 30%, depending on volume sold. The beginning amount is standard ballpark.

I know other Publish America authors who are very happy and repeating second and third books with PA.
I, too, have submitted again, in hopes that my second book will be published with them.

I've seen Marky48 post several places in an effort to slander PA. Never does he specifically say what his beef is. Just that he is unhappy. Now, I don't presume to know what his personal situation is, but I would like to hear the facts of his disgruntlement, if there are any. He alludes to legal problems. What are they? Did they print his work and never pay him a dime? Never print his work? What? When did he sign his contract? When was his book supposed to be out? Did it come out?

As for cost of the book, you can look at other PA books and get a ballpark price on what yours will fall close to. They sell them at the highest price that the market will bear.

If there is a legitimate problem with the company, please, by all means, go into detail. Let us PA authors and potential authors know exactly what to protect ourselves against. But don't go around making allusions that are unsubstantiated with facts.

[vstrauss]

Poorboy, no professional literary agent or lawyer well-versed in publishing contract language (I know a few, so I'm not talking out of my hat here) would have ever told you PA's contract was "in order". It's a highly nonstandard contract that bears only superficial resemblance to contracts offered by commercial publishing houses.

>>the advance isn't as high as the larger publishing houses (Random/Tor/Harlequin/Etc.)<<

No s**t. PA pays $1. Double that and add three zeros, and you'll have about the lowest advance you'll ever run across from one of the above-mentioned commercial publishers.

>>The percentage offered me escalates from 8% and goes up to 30%, depending on volume sold. The beginning amount is standard ballpark.<<

30%? I've seen a lot of PA contracts. I've never seen one that offered a royalty higher than 12.5%, and that only if more than 10,000 books are sold (to put that in perspective, most PA authors' sales never get out of the low three digits). Please, if there's a contract that promises a 30% royalty, send me a copy and I will gladly eat my words: PO Box 1216, Amherst MA 01004.

A lawyer experienced in publishing contract language would have pointed out that PA's royalties are paid on the publisher's net receipts. This is not commercial-publisher standard: royalties should be paid on a book's retail, or cover price.

- Victoria
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

[marky48]

What a relief. For brief moment I thought I was the "poorboy." I don't know how I come off as "angry" for no reason. Many who are asked a question they don't want to hear see it that way. "How dare you attack my publisher and my family?" Was one reply I got at the PA board.

Another who bought my book and praised it, sensed an unsourced "anger." It's strange really. But when one addresses unpopular probelms like environmental degradation, endangered species and the like, lays blame with facts, and is also a professional in the field, many get disturbed. It's par for the course. Blame the messenger.

I clearly stated the facts of the problem with PA. But facts are not the friend of PA apologists. My contract goes from 8% on the first 2000;10 of the next;12.5 on those in excess of 10,000. I don't know where the 30% claim comes from and I've never seen the language referring to Random, Tor et al.

One thing I didn't see with the intitial contract is the lengthy press kit marketing strategy that came with the final deal long after the contract was signed. A grand outline of schemes to get stores to take the books and make bookmarks, flyers and so on. Several pages of it. Had I seen that at the outset I wouldn't have signed. It's a sandbagging technique in my view. I'd be happy to e-mail the contract to Victoria, if she's open to that for the files.

And "slander" has to be delivered in person. The term doesn't pertain to written material. Well, unless you're Ann Coulter.

[poorboy2]

My contract, which is standard PA states that my percentage is figured from the sales price of the book.
(Cut and pasted quote from the actual contract)

The Publisher shall pay to the Author the following royalties:
A royalty upon the regular edition sold in the United States and elsewhere of:
8 percent of the sales price thereof on the first 2,000 copies sold;
10 percent on the next 8,000 copies sold;
12.5 percent on all copies sold in excess of 10,000.

Furthermore, if I were to purchase books and sell them as self-published authors do, I could earn up to 30% on the retail price:
(Cut and pasted quote from the actual contract)

Should the Author wish to purchase additional copies of the said literary
work directly from the Publisher, the Publisher agrees to supply the Author with such copies at a
discount of 20% from the regular retail price per copy, if the Author orders up to 20 copies at
a time, and at a discount of 30% from the regular retail price per copy, if the Author orders 21
copies or more at a time. The Author may dispose of these copies in any manner, and, if re-sold, may
retain all monies derived therefrom.

[poorboy2]

The lawyer turned literary agent that said her only problem with the contract was the length and low advance was Susan Farris of the Farris Literary Agency in Texas.

She has seen numerous contracts from which to compare.

While it is obviously not the best contract available, since there are other contracts that provide exciting advances, it beats the no advance contract a friend of mine received for a children's novel. She only received 5%, period, never to escalate by volume. And she was glad to get it.

I know other author's who have had to pay back their advances because the book they sold didn't perform. So, unless the contract reads non-refundable advance, what's the difference?

And I don't know where the statistics are for number of books PA authors have sold, but I have an acquaintance that is a PA author with 3500 books sold in one year. I don't know actual figures for other authors, or the average. Where did you get your stats?

Don't get me wrong. If there is something to uncover, I would like to see it.

All I really know is that my contract seems pretty straightforward. The three published PA authors and one other unpublished to date PA author that I personally know are happy.

What exactly should we be wary of? Or unhappy about?

I have yet to see this promotional package that Marky48 didn't like. Did it require the author to do things he didn't want to do? Please, by all means, expound for us on what your actual conflict is with PA.

I mean, the percentages and advance are spelled out in the contract. No one twists your arm to sign. Right?
So, where's the real beef?

[marky48]

You seem to be onboard with the "buy my own books" promotion method. Author sales are encouraged, they have to be since they will be the only ones. See sales figures for PA books. Tragic. Take note of the Library of Congress's refusal to accept POD vanity books. A new policy I applaud. PA people are still reeling trying to figure out the horror of it.

The promotional package came with the final announcement of my book not with the initial two copies of the contract. What does that tell you? It outlines self-promotional techniques including review copies after the book is released! A little late for that isn't it bucko? They had no intentions of promoting the book. It applies to all including you. I don't think I'd look to Texas for literary agents.

[popper20]

mark,
>>The promotional package came with the final announcement of my book
>>It outlines self-promotional techniques including review copies
>>after the book is released!

You're lying again. Actually all of the info is up on PA's site, for all the world to see. Always has been. I got it from the support team very early on. You must have missed quite a few things along the way.

>>Take note of the Library of Congress's
>>refusal to accept POD vanity books

You're lying here too. Or very mistaken.
PA's books are not "vanity" nor are they "POD" (PUBLISH On Demand).
PA's books are not thought of that way either.
Get your facts straight. Your agenda seems to be a bit tangled up.

[marky48]

Well, here they come screaming liar liar. Promotional strategies are indeed on the site, but I defy you to show where they say that is only strategy they have and that they themselves do nothing. I know you can't.

I got mine as stated and have mailing dates. Visit the Library of Congress and ask them about GIF. See many threads here on the difference between "Publish" and "print" on demand. This is too annoying at this point.

[popper20]

Mark,
>>The promotional package came with the final announcement of my book
>>It outlines self-promotional techniques including review copies
>>after the book is released!

Actually all of the info is up on PA's site, for all the world to see. Always has been. I got it from the support team very early on. You must have missed quite a few things along the way.

>>Take note of the Library of Congress's
>>refusal to accept POD vanity books

You're very mistaken. PA's books are not "vanity" nor are they "POD" (PUBLISH On Demand). PA's books are not thought of that way either.

Get your facts straight. Your agenda seems to be a bit tangled up.

[popper20]

mark,
Sorry about the double post.

You are right that they don't say it's the only thing they do because it isn't. They send out thousands of gratis review copies, press releases, award submissions, and all sorts of other stuff. Please check your facts before slinging wild accusations. You are making a fool of yourself.

As for the difference between publish and print on demand, everyone knows what the difference is. It's the difference between vanity publishing and a new print technology embraced by all major publishers. Just because Strauss is out there making a fool of herself too doesn't mean much of anything at all. She's been around for years, not meaning much of anything at all.

If you had checked your facts you would know this. This is too irritating. Please check your facts before posting. You're sinking down into Strauss' level of credence.

[marky48]

Well, if picking fools is my choice you lose even though you obviously are a strong candidate. Is that you Ms. Prather?

[popper20]

poorboy,
Yes, you are right. There is no beef, there are no problems.

What there are, are 5000 authors, yet no complaints at the BBB, no complaints at the AG, and no complaints whatsoever. What you've got are literally several thousand very happily published authors. Check out PA's message board.

Strauss herself backs this up nicely. She long ago lost credibility for her wild accusations. Actually, lots of lawyers who are "well-versed in publishing contract language" have pronouced PA's contract "in order". So has the AFL-CIO, the Christian Writer's Market, Writer's Digest Magazine, and a couple of hundred lawyers who have signed PA's contract themselves. It's a very industry standard contract.

Strauss is making her usual fool of herself. It's just that on this board it seems that no one has heard of her. She's just a whiner looking for a problem. If none exists, she makes one up.

Don't believe me? Then email support@publishamerica.com and they'll send you the facts. PA has 5000 happy authors, and about 5 unhappy ones. That's a better satisfaction ratio than that of most businesses.

[aussiesauce]

Contrary to Popper 20's statements:
Complaints have been filed with the Maryland AG's office.
Complaints have also been filed with the FTC.
There are more than 5 unhappy PA authors.
Victoria is only dis-credited by PubishAmerica staff.
The PublishAmerica contract is a sub-standard Publishing Industry contract.

[emeraldcite]

Then email support@publishamerica.com and they'll send you the facts.

just to put things into perspective:

if you send a letter to president bush asking for the facts, you will get one answer.

if you send a letter to any of the possible democratic candidates asking for the facts, you will get another answer.

the answer will look little like one another, but both can sound very valid.

the point is, if you email PA for the "facts," then they will give you the facts according to them. I've seen many complaints about PA, including complaints on their own message boards. check out the "Take it outside board" and read the myriad of comments on PA there.You'll see varying opinions on the "facts."

As i teach in my freshman composition courses: when looking for validity and reliability in the information provided by a "source," one must take into consideration who is distributing the information. Both pro-life and pro-choice websites offer facts, but whose "facts" are the truest?

[DaveKuzminski]

Well, gee, Popper, you're certainly credible, aren't you? At least Victoria has the courage to use her name in her posts and present accurate facts that can be verified by independent sources. Would you like to suggest how anyone not connected with PublishAmerica can verify your statements from an independent source? You're only quoting PublishAmerica for your information. Now provide some verification.

As far as your other derogatory comments concerning Victoria, that's only to be expected from someone hiding behind a tag so they can't be held accountable.

[emeraldcite]

did anyone else notice that poorboy and popper have about the same number of posts....where have we seen this before...

[marky48]

Yup. Sounds familiar to me, and there's complaints now aren't there? Both, if plural registered today just for this purpose. I even know who told them. I've found several fearful formerly if ever "happy" authors and many willing-to-complain unhappy ones. Coercion and Blackmail is a strange business plan in my view. An environment of fear is not a sign of a happy anything. History has taught some of us that.

The true picture is found in the middle ground. That is where an objective review of the facts always leads. Should one want to go.

[RebelWriter]

Seems PA will now hound us here too. Too bad they couldn't be banned as they do anyone who disagrees with them. The staff has nothing better to do. They have plenty of free time don't they? They think they will win this one. Or perhaps they are sweating a little? Too many would walk right into quicksand no matter who warned them.

[marky48]

There's one over on the other forum too. Think of it as the "Bucket Brigade."

[vstrauss]

Response to poorboy2:

>> The lawyer turned literary agent that said her only problem with the contract was the length and low advance was Susan Farris of the Farris Literary Agency in Texas.<<

Ah. This does not appear to be a particularly well-established agency (just three sales according to its website) and Ms. Farris's legal practice does not appear to include publishing law.

>>it beats the no advance contract a friend of mine received for a children's novel. She only received 5%, period, never to escalate by volume. And she was glad to get it.<<

I would agree with you, this sounds like a terrible contract. My sympathies to your friend.

>> I know other author's who have had to pay back their advances because the book they sold didn't perform. So, unless the contract reads non-refundable advance, what's the difference?<<

The contract doesn't have to read "non-refundable advance" because publishers don't require authors to pay back unearned advances. It's a common writers' myth that they do, but this notion is just that: a myth. Authors who receive advances do _not_ have to pay them back.

>>I have an acquaintance that is a PA author with 3500 books sold in one year.<<

I'd be very interested to learn who.

>>All I really know is that my contract seems pretty straightforward.<<

Only if you're not well-acquainted with publishing contracts.

- Victoria
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

P.S. "Sales" price is a sneaky way of saying "net proceeds".

[vstrauss]

Gee, popper, you're still using the same old slurs. You really ought to come up with some new ones. I always know it's you.

Also, next time around, you might try not quoting passages from PA's canned response to disgruntled authors. It kinda gives the game away.

Those of us who are veterans of the PA flame wars have a pretty good idea of who popper is, or at least of where s/he works.

- Victoria
Writer Bware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

[XThe NavigatorX]

Out of curiosity, I searched the Library of Congress catalog. There isn't a single PA title listed.

[popper20]

XThe, yes, there are.
(note to staff: where do you find these people?)

Victoria, yes, that's your standard. It's been years now. You need an update. All pro-PublishAmerica comments from from their staff. I could not be one of their 5000 happy authors, now could I?

The same 5000 whose numbers steadily increased over the years, as you predicted doom and gloom. You were wrong, discredited, and, thankfully, ignored by all who matter.

I questioned PublishAmerica too. It seemed too good to me to be true, so I looked into them. I did a lot of research on the web. I went to dozens of message boards, and looked at them from every angle. What I found is that they are entirely legit, do all they say they'll do, and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE seems to love them.

The amount of those who don't are so small and insignificant that they're not even worth mentioning, and it's been that way for years with no change.

Hence saying "EVERYONE seems to love them" is appropriate.

[marky48]

The numbers don't lie, but this ratio is skewed in the wrong direction. There are just enough minor self-promoters to make a store placement rarity literally true. Profits are nonexistent as designed, except for PA.

I also found one legitimate review of a PA book, but I'm certain that the author arranged and timed it perfectly using their personal resume to gain even that much. It was not because of the publisher; in spite of it. And even this author is an exile. How happy is that? More will come though with vanity presses charging more and more all the time, a dollar sounds like a good deal.

As for the above performance it reminds me of Comical Ali.

[aka eraser]

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

[DaveKuzminski]

When you state 5000 happy versus 5 unhappy, Popper20, you conveniently ignore the fact that there are dozens of letters on file from unhappy authors expressing how poorly PublishAmerica treated them and that's at P&E alone. I can only speculate how many more are on file with Writer Beware, Absolute Write, Writers Net, and several other forums interested in supporting writers.

I will admit that I've received some letters from happy authors published by PublishAmerica. Sadly, a number of those later wrote to retract their words, so I doubt if 5000 is at all accurate. At best, it represents only how many writers have signed with PublishAmerica. However, happy is your interpretation. It's certainly not all of theirs.

[vstrauss]

>>I could not be one of their 5000 happy authors, now could I?<<

No, you couldn't, because in your post you used some of the content that appears in PA's response to _unhappy_ authors. Since this content doesn't show up on the PA website, it therefore follows that you must be a) an unhappy PA author, or b) a PA staffer.

- Victoria
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

P.S. For those who are wondering, here's the wording I'm referring to:

"Actually, lots of lawyers who are 'well-versed in publishing contract language' have pronouced PA's contract 'in order'. So has the AFL-CIO, the Christian Writer's Market, Writer's Digest Magazine, and a couple of hundred lawyers who have signed PA's contract themselves. It's a very industry standard contract."

[XThe NavigatorX]

XThe, yes, there are.

Wow. Instead of just spouting off insults, please prove your point. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've searched and found nothing.

The catalog is online. catalog.loc.gov (http://catalog.loc.gov)

I searched using publisher name. Nothing.
I searched using the ISBNs of their top 15 sellers. Nothing.
I searched using just the ISBN prefixes. Nothing.

Then I thought, maybe this is the wrong catalog. So I searched for some other mid-size (more than 50 titles in print) indie publisher names. (Like Meisha Merlin, Daniel&Daniel, Soho press, etc.) Every single publisher I could think of was in there.

But, just to be sure I fired off an email asking what was up. I'll let you know if I get a response.

However, if you have any proof in the meantime I'll be happy to look at it. And if I'm wrong, I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong.

[James D Macdonald]

XThe, yes, there are [PA books listed with the Library of Congress].

Really? Would you care to name them?

I don't have the time or inclination to check every single PA title, so I did a random sample. I went to Amazon and called up every book written by someone named "Turner" and published by PA. And I went to the Library of Congress, to their <a href="http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First" target="_new">search-on-ISBN</a>feature.

So.... let's see.

Eight books. One hasn't been released yet (The Promesa Strategy by Diane Barrera Turner (Paperback - November 2003) so I won't count that one (the Library of Congress doesn't list it, but I'm trying to be fair).

Next: If I Perish by Deborah R. Turner. November 2002. Amazon sales rank 2,060,885 (in other words, Mom bought a copy). 292 pages, $24.95. ISBN: 1591295246 Library of Congress: Not found.

Third book: Do Not Read : Family Deception by Robert Turner. July 2003. No Amazon sales rank (in other words, no one at all has bought a copy). 131 pages, $19.95. ISBN: 1588514994. Library of Congress: Not found.

Fourth book: Anatomy of a Civil Rights Worker by Willie B., Jr Ludden and Leon Turner. August, 2002. No Amazon sales rank (no sales). 186 pages, $19.95. ISBN: 1591294908. Library of Congress: Not found.

Fifth book: Lonnie by B. Turner. December, 2002. No Amazon sales rank (no sales). 135 pages, $19.95 (that's an awfully high price for such a short book, don't you think?) ISBN: 159129892X Library of Congress: Not found.

Sixth book: The Rise and Fall of the Witch on the Bayou by Laraine Elizabeth Turner. April, 2001. Amazon.com Sales Rank: 1,593,508 (Mom got her bridge club to order copies too). 138 pages, $17.95. ISBN: 1588518620 Library of Congress: Not found.

Seventh book: I Never Met an Airplane I Didn't Like by Ken Turner. March 2003. No Amazon sales rank (no sales). 136 pages, $19.95 (we're seeing that price a lot....) ISBN: 1592863434. Library of Congress: Not found.

Eighth book: The Last Voyage of the Cassiopeia
by Stephen H. Turner. July 2003. (Have you <a href="http://lastvoyageofthecassiopeia.com/" target="_new">read</a> the excerpts from this book? Is this a fair sample of what PA publishes?) No Amazon sales rank (no sales). 346 pages, $24.95. ISBN: 1592868932 Library of Congress: Not found.

Looks like PA is batting zero.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Amazon isn't the only source of sales for these books. There are the books that the authors buy themselves direct from PA for resale. There are those that move through other on-line stores. Amazon is, however, a dipstick. A book that's selling well across the board will have a better Amazon sales rank than one that's selling poorly. Based on the Amazon dipstick, PA titles have abysmal sales.

Let's look just briefly at those prices before I close. Average price for these random eight books is $20.95. The average price for adult trade paperbacks in America (per R.R. Bowker) is $15.77. PA charges five dollars a copy more than average.

(note to staff: where do you find these people?)

Which staff would that be? PA staff?

So where do those 5,000 PA writers come from? Fill in the blanks: "There's a ______ born every ______."

Why are there 5,000 pro, 5 against (assuming that's true)?

Fill in more blanks: "You can fool ____ of the people ___ of the time."

PA caters to the desperate, the deluded, and the naive. Not that desperate, deluded people shouldn't get published! Heaven forfend! But the naive ought to be warned, so that they can seek legitimate publication with traditional publishers, rather than going the easy but fruitless route of installment-plan vanity publication. Some of them probably wrote decent books, or ones that could become decent with editing.

Victoria is doing a splendid job of wising up the naifs. Else why would PA be so keen on attempting to discredit her? (Without, may I add, a whole lot of success -- it helps that both truth and common sense are on her side.)

[marky48]

And I would be hard-pressed to find two better debating partners than James and Victoria. I wish to hell I'd have run the search sooner, but hindsight is well, everyone knows; at least some do.

As for the naifs, things are heating up with the PA exiles who continue to have at least one-eye blind. I have now been threatened with a shotgun by ashton west at mindsight yet I'm the one taking the flak. It's a circus of fear. It appears that here the jury is still out and bankruptcy is a bigger fear than PA collecting more victims. Imagine losing all those proceeds to a court? How will I make it?

www.mindsightseries.com/d...1067102781 (http://www.mindsightseries.com/discus/messages/6/2672.html?1067102781)

Then again when you have consider the possibility of split-personality-posters it's gone beyond judgement. There's a can and PA apologists or deniers go into it. There's no time to argue it, or reason to.

[marky48]

Now I get it. I wonder what this 517 pp. PA books goes for? They don't list a price, but maybe with a little coaxing. Explains his opinion of me though.

www.amazon.com/exec/obido...ce&s=books (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1588519333/qid=1067106028/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-4397550-8495169?v=glance&s=books)

[tunskit]

The same 5000 whose numbers steadily increased over the years, as you predicted doom and gloom. You were wrong, discredited, and, thankfully, ignored by all who matter.

Or it could be, PA has continued to lure in uneducated first-time/fairly new authors, despite their policy, because many of these authors are so flattered to be "chosen" that they rarely take the time to look properly into the company they are being published by.

I certainly wish I had invested more time in researching publishers and standard contracts before signing with Publish America, instead of leaping blindly. I guess I'm one of the "five" unhappy PA authors. It's amazing how all five of us just happened to gravitate to the same place, isn't it? Why, it's almost as if we went searching for a place to find information that wasn't tainted and censored by the happy-police at PA.

Or, it could be, we just like to complain for no good reason and sought out a place where we could voice our ungrateful opinions. How dare we not grovel with gratitude that PA published us, took our rights for seven years, and sold five whole copies (in my case) of my book in six months? It's my fault sales weren't higher, since I refused to buy and resell copies of my own books...almost like a vanity publisher. Hmm. I can't believe how unreasonable I have been. You've shown me the error of my ways. Uh huh.

(I will say signing the contract with PA was 100% my fault, for not researching properly. If there were a way to terminate the contract, I would like to. Since I doubt this is possible, I will have to write off the book for seven years, until the rights revert to me. I might deserve that, for my own stupidity.)

[marky48]

File the complaint. And PA has yet to outsell the POD book they took on, but nothing from nothing is still nothing.

[James D Macdonald]

I wonder what this 517 pp. PA books goes for?

Similar-length books from PA go between thirty and forty dollars.

The lack of a posted price means that the book is no longer being offered by the publisher.

Two used copies are available. One is listed as "Good; Collectible Autographed to Peter by author. Minimal shelf wear to covers. pages clean, unmarked." The other is listed as "new."

[marky48]

That's what I assumed, but a price may be listed somewhere. It's whopper of a flop so they dropped it. Meanwhile that aston west character left quite a long list of recommendations for me over there. I decided to call him "Meiners."

[HapiSofi]

"The lawyer turned literary agent that said her only problem with the contract was the length and low advance was Susan Farris of the Farris Literary Agency in Texas."

That is to say, she'll cop to the two universally acknowledged drawbacks of the PA contract, and give a passing grade to the rest of a contract that's a quagmire throughout? I am seriously not impressed.

Anybody can declare themselves an agent, whether or not they know what they're doing, or have the necessary training and industry contacts. They can go on calling themselves an agent whether or not they're making real sales and deriving their income from money paid out by publishers.

If Susan Farris has seen a lot of contracts, and still thinks PA's is reasonable, then I'm sorry, but she's been hanging out with the wannabes, neverwozzers, and bottomfeeders. It's not a shooting offense in a human being, but it's not what you want in an agent.

What you really don't want is an agent who professes to believe you're good enough to take on as a client, and then sells you into PublishAmerica. Someone who does that is not fighting on the side of the angels.

Look, you can get stubborn and sulky if you want, and say you can't see where the problem is, but you're still getting screwed over. This is not a matter of opinion. It's not a question of differing models of how publishing works. Your book is not going to get bought and read. You're not going to make money off it. You have fallen into a universe in which the least that a word means is that most you're going to get.

Read my lips: Screwed. Foodbeast. LUNCH stencilled on your forehead in indelible ink. Not going to be around by the time dessert is served.

Even if you do everything PA says, and do it perfectly, with maximum effort, your book still will not sell. Do you actually think that if their methods were sufficient to sell a book, the real publishing industry wouldn't be doing it the same way?

Onward.

"While it is obviously not the best contract available, since there are other contracts that provide exciting advances, it beats the no advance contract a friend of mine received for a children's novel. She only received 5%, period, never to escalate by volume. And she was glad to get it."

So? Your friend got screwed too. Being glad about it is what we call abuse-positive behavior.

"I know other author's who have had to pay back their advances because the book they sold didn't perform."

If they got asked to pay back their advances after their books were published, they were nowhere near the real publishing industry. They weren't even in the ballpark. They were across the river, two counties over in the next state, in someone's Goofy Golf course.

"So, unless the contract reads non-refundable advance, what's the difference?"

Printing isn't publishing. Putting your book into the hands of people who don't make their money selling books to readers is not going to make you a happy author, and it's not going to get your book read. That's the difference.

"And I don't know where the statistics are for number of books PA authors have sold, but I have an acquaintance that is a PA author with 3500 books sold in one year."

I am ever so dubious. Who's your fortunate friend, and what's the title of their book?

"All I really know is that my contract seems pretty straightforward."

The pieces I've seen of PA contracts haven't been straightforward. Real publishing contracts aren't what you'd call straightforward either, but they're not-straightforward in a different kind of way.

"I mean, the percentages and advance are spelled out in the contract. No one twists your arm to sign. Right?

So, where's the real beef?"

First, the absence of force is not the absence of fraud.

Second, PA primarily markets to to naive and unpublished authors. What I've seen of their contractual language has been deliberately murky and misleading, not to mention grossly nonstandard. Their sales language and marketing campaigns are just plain mendacious.

The fact that someone's befuddled by wishful thinking, and doesn't know much about publishing, doesn't mean it's okay to steal from them.

[James D Macdonald]

It's whopper of a flop so they dropped it.

It could be that the author annoyed them, so to punish him they stopped printing the book, while still keeping it under contract (the seven year deal), to keep him from selling it elsewhere. I've heard of that happening.

To say that that's non-standard (though still within the things allowed by the dreadful PA contract) should be obvious.

[marky48]

It damn sure is. Review copies sent by publisher? Yeah this the team you want.

www.publishamerica.com/cg...n/7984.htm (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/main/7984.htm)

Some report $8 shipping charges from the PA store.

Update: The last guy on the PA thread was actually a Hollywood screenwriter from the 1950s. Even he wouldn't listen. I actually wrote him.

[HapiSofi]

mark,
>>The promotional package came with the final announcement of my book
>>It outlines self-promotional techniques including review copies
>>after the book is released!

You're lying again. Actually all of the info is up on PA's site, for all the world to see. Always has been. I got it from the support team very early on. You must have missed quite a few things along the way.

There you go again, trying to bully people into silence when they talk about their experiences with PublishAmerica. I recognize you. You use a lot of different names here and there around the internet, but your tone and approach don't change. You invariably show up to the dance wearing hobnailed boots when writers are discussing PA.

You're rude. You're a bully. You're a coward who hides behind multiple names. You tell crude lies and try to back them up with verbal abuse.

You are a bad man.

Furthermore, you're not very good at being a bad man. You'd make a much more effective villain if you weren't as rude when you did it.

>>Take note of the Library of Congress's
>>refusal to accept POD vanity books

You're lying here too. Or very mistaken.

About the Library of Congress refusing to accept PA's books? No mistake there. They don't accept them.

I'm quite certain you're a PA employee or partner. I know it's urgently important to you to deny that the Library of Congress doesn't recognize PA as a legitimate publisher, because it tips off wannabe authors that PA is a clip joint.

The other issue where you guys deny the truth this urgently is the question of whether bookstores stock PA titles. They don't. Your writers think they do, because you tell them so. It's a lie. Over and over again, they post heartbreakingly plaintive messages to the PA boards about not being able to find their newly-published book on the shelves of their local bookstores.

You guys tell them soothing lies when they do it, or tell them it's their fault for not trying hard enough to get their books into bookstores; and all the while you're saying it, you know perfectly well that PA books don't get bookstore placement because you're a vanity press.

If your writers knew that going in, far fewer of them would sign your contract. And that's the point, of course; you're making a lot of money off their belief that PA is real publishing.

PA's books are not "vanity" nor are they "POD" (PUBLISH On Demand).

What nonsense. Of course they are.

PA is vanity publishing. They'll publish anything by anybody, no matter how bad it is; and they don't make their money by selling their books to the general public. They cheap out by doing absolutely minimal production work, and no editing aside from a little text cleanup, and they make their profit by selling copies to the writers and their friends-and-relations at an inflated cover price.

PA is POD, Print On Demand. If every time an author tries to break off their relationship with PA, they're told they're obliged to buy 49 copies of their own book, PublishAmerica is a POD publisher. You don't have to be getting your production via Lightning to be doing POD. Printing your books only as needed, in lots of 50 or fewer, is also Printing on Demand.

PA's books are not thought of that way either.

They are by everybody I know, which includes quite a few professional authors, editors, agents, reviewers, marketers, publicists, booksellers, bookstore chain buyers, and production specialists.

Not to mention the Library of Congress.

Get your facts straight. Your agenda seems to be a bit tangled up.

Facts? You're the one here who's come in with a hatful of assertions. If I had as little basis for my arguments as you do, I'd be a lot more polite about the way I made them.

[popper20]

Hapi, you're way off base. I'll just pick one easy one. PA books are in bookstores all over the place. I saw a stack of about eight (three different titles) just today at my local Borders, sitting on the shelf. Across town at Waldenbooks I saw two of one title, on the shelf. And here's a link for you, there are dozens like this: :)

www.publishamerica.com/cg...n/7986.htm (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/main/7986.htm)

Marky, the jagged reasoning of you and Strauss give the appearance of pathology. The only course you run that remains true is that you remain unfailingly easy to refute. Check your link, and PA's response. You only read the top post! Now you see that PA DOES send review copies.

Care to apologize?

The question then becomes, just HOW MANY review copies DOES PA send?

There's a group out there that says that the Haagen-Daz ice cream company is really run by nazis using ice cream to try again to rule the world. There are similarities there to what you are saying here.

1 - The price of the ice cream is higher than most other ice cream.
2 - They don't do much marketing. Naive ice cream lovers, WHO HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE ICE CREAM INDUSTRY, spread the word.
3 - They have the same ratio of customer dissatisfaction: 5 out of 5000.

The situation is absoutely diabolical!
Hapi, you don't qualify yet, but Marky, you and Strauss should join them. :rollin
They need your help!

[James D Macdonald]

Hapi, you're way off base. I'll just pick one easy one. PA books are in bookstores all over the place. I saw a stack of about eight (three different titles) just today at my local Borders, sitting on the shelf. Across town at Waldenbooks I saw two of one title, on the shelf.

Pathetically easy to refute, Popper. You need to try harder.

Why are those books on the shelf? Because the author is local, and pursuaded the local manager to shelve a few. Perhaps the author talked the manager into shelving some that the author had purchased, on consignment.

Do you have any examples of bookstores stocking PA books when the author didn't go there in person and beg?

This happens, all over the country. Individual titles are shelved, in dribs and drabs. Not at all the same thing as the bookstores stocking the books. It's another example of PublishAmerica taking credit for what the authors manage on their own.

Let's say that you've picked off the "easy one," just for the sake of argument. Try one of the hard ones. Hapi raised lots of points. Are you conceding all of the rest?

By the way, I'm still waiting for the names of the PA books that are listed by the Library of Congress.

You're long on accusations, but short on facts. Times, places, dates, prices, numbers, titles -- that sort of thing. When people ask you specific questions, the specific answer never turns up.

Where would your local Borders happen to be? What were the titles? Do the authors of those books live within twenty-five miles of that store?

[James D Macdonald]

Oh, yeah ... Check your link, and PA's response. You only read the top post! Now you see that PA DOES send review copies.

Let's see, what's PA's response in the link Marky just posted?

Why, as of that moment there was no response from PA! Unless you're talking about some guy named H. B. Marcus saying "All you can puke folks! That's my motto."

There's a response from the Infocenter now, though, saying
"As you know, PublishAmerica sends out review copies, gratis, within reason, and at our descretion.

"Also, as you know, if your request was denied, it means that many review copies were already sent to reviewers, probably without positive results.

"Funny you didn't mention that part of the story."

Where to start with that foolish reply to a serious question? Start with the "at our descretion" bit. That's "if we feel like it." No definition of "within reason," and no comment on why a review copy to beer.com isn't reasonable.

"As you know, if your request was denied it means that many review copies were already sent to reviewers"? What sort of nonsense is that? All it means is that this request was denied. It doesn't imply a thing about how many, if indeed any, copies were sent to "reviewers."

Funny you didn't mention that part of the story"? Funny that he didn't mention the part that he had no way of knowing, and that may well be a total fabrication in any case?

Here was a major site, requesting a review copy. So PA sent out copies to other reviewers "without positive results." This site may well have had a positive result. Any real publisher sends out review copies by the case, months before the book's release.

PA is, once again, showing its vanity roots. I count this as confirmation, straight from InfoCenter, that PA isn't interested in promoting their authors' works.

[marky48]

How do we know popper is a man?

"Care to apologize?"

No. I'd say this Borders popper is referring to is in Frederick, MD. If PA is trying to paint us as the Bildebergers they're doing a poor job of it. But then, they're not used to having much in the way of opposition from the flock.

I think they're on the ropes at the moment don't you?

[Tish Davidson]

I've decided you're never going to change the minds of some fools who believe that having a book printed by PA is being published. I, for one, have decided that PA is doing all real authors a favor by cutting down on the submissions to agents and publishers. After all, why do the hard work if you can send off a disk and a check to PA and get a "book" in return?

Give it up, guys. You can't single-handedly save the world from its own stupidity. The truth is that the legitimate book industry will take care of the problem in terms of no reviews, no distribution, and no sales. I even know someone whose PA book was turned down by a public library - said they would accept it as a donation to sell at their semi-annual used book sale, but that it wasn't worth the time or effort to catalog PA books and put them on the shelf.

[emeraldcite]

lol....even the public library won't take them for donation...

[marky48]

That is good. Even after banning and blackmail mindsight attacked me. Debriefing is too complicated for them. Let the feds sort it out.

[HapiSofi]

Hey, a writer I know came up with an excellent idea for getting some practical use out of PA: Use them as a stable backup medium.

You send them the material you want to preserve, and they'll print it out for you as a hardcopy book. It's great for recipe collections, useful tabular data, the texts of all the late-medieval poetry you need to have near to hand while you're finishing your dissertation ... whatever. One copy's relatively inexpensive, and if through pure bad luck you lose it, you can buy another.

And you don't have to worry about copyright issues! We know that PublishAmerica never looks at the text once it comes back from the author. As long as you have something in e-text and it's the same length as whatever you originally sent them, you're good to go.

[HapiSofi]

Popper, you lie. I'm not offended. Lying is what you're here to do. Your primary agenda this evening is to insist that bookstores carry PA titles.

They don't.

(If you're an aspiring writer, and are thinking about giving your book away to PA because at least that way it'll wind up on bookstore shelves, think again. It won't. This is one of PA's biggest sore points. They lie about their books getting bookstore distribution because they know how much that means to writers. The idea that they can do this for their authors' books is a major PA selling point. It's worth a lot of money to them to have you believe it can. That's why "popper20" -- the current sockpuppet name of one of their online enforcers -- has turned up to browbeat us about it.)

So, popper20, why do I call you a liar?

First, you don't mention where you live. You can claim anything about what's in stock at your local bookstores. What I have to say to that is that at my local Barnes & Noble they have the Holy Grail, the missing Book of Lehi, and Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction; so neener! Top that.

Second, as I said in my previous message, I'm convinced you either work for or own a portion of PublishAmerica. If you guys can't get a few copies into your local bookstores, you're just plain feeble.

Third, most authors can, with perseverance, shoehorn a few copies into their local bookstores. Without exception, all the ascertainable cases I know of where PA titles ended up on bookstore shelves, that placement was the work of the book's author. But that has nothing to do with PA. If you have a good book and a reasonably cooperative bookstore, you could do as much with a book you'd printed and bound in your own basement. PA gets no credit for that.

Fourth--and this is the big reason, to which reasons nos. 1-3 are the merest foothills--if PublishAmerica really is publishing in the vicinity of a thousand general-interest titles a year, it would be absolutely pathetic for your local Borders to only have eight copies total of three titles, and your local Waldenbooks to have two copies of another.

Frauds! Losers! ! If PA had any kind of decent trade distribution, your local Borders ought to have multiple copies of hundreds of PublishAmerica titles. Three titles, eight copies total, is overwhelming proof that PA's books don't get shelved in bookstores.

Now let's talk about review copies.

A major review venue for a specific special-interest audience, Beer.com, requested a review copy from PA. They were turned down.

I cannot imagine a real publishing house turning down a serious special-interest review venue's request for a copy of an entirely relevant book. It's impossible. They might do it if the book had long ago stopped selling, gone out of print, and reverted to the author, and if they had no extra copies left in the office -- but that's what it would take. Publishing houses sell books, and reviewers sell books. They would never turn one down.

You couldn't ask for better evidence that PA regards book sales as a pleasant fiction, one useful for ensnaring writers.

As for the assertion that this is evidence that PA already sent wads of review copies of that particular book to other reviewers? It's nothing of the sort. I haven't been hearing about reviewers getting a lot of copies of PA titles. If PA were sending them out, I should have heard. And if PA did send out scads of review copies of this book about beer, show me the reviews. Put up or shut up. They can't all have been busts.

In re Haagen-Dazs:

Ridiculous. Irrelevant. Red herring-flavored ice cream. I diskard it uterly.

Concerning ratios of customer dissatisfaction:

Customer dissatisfaction with PA is low before the book comes out. Happy authors imagine that everything will go, not as promised, but as suggested. That's an easy target to hit.

Customer dissatisfaction with PA rises dramatically in the vicinity of the book's publication date, and increases thereafter. If you go to PA's own discussion boards, you'll find very few old PA authors, and a lot of happy expectant about-to-be-published new authors.

Five in five thousand? I don't want to touch that figure. I know what you pulled it out of.

I take it that you concede the rest of my points?

-hs

[tunskit]

The only reviews I ever received on my PA title were solicited by myself, through the venue of reviewers who automatically receive books from my other publisher. Notice, I said AUTOMATICALLY. With the PA book, I had to email each site's coordinator. The only copy I was ever able to get into their hands was the PDF of the final version of the book. Imagine the expense if I had printed out the ARC myself to send to various reviewers. It was good to have the PDF available, but it also severely limited the places that would accept a review copy.

Most PA authors, even the naive ones, realize (or should) that PA is a POD publisher, not a traditional publisher. That should dawn on them about the time they receive the low-quality authors' copies and realize no bookstores will stock them.

When my PA book came out, I tried to get it in local bookstores, but all said no, because of the non-returnable issue that PA tries to make seem like a good thing. With my latest paperback (not PA, of course), I've had no trouble getting it in stores. Why? Because the publisher, though small-press, will take back unsold copies.

[James D Macdonald]

The only copy I was ever able to get into their hands was the PDF of the final version of the book.

Whoa! Hold up there, tunskit! Are you saying that all of the requests by reviewers for copies of your book were turned down by PA?

(Hey, popper! Is this proof that PA sent out a whole pile of copies?)

I'm starting to wonder if the only time a reviewer gets a hard copy of a PA book is when the author buys it himself and sends it to the reviewer personally.

Yo, Jenna! You around? Back in the days when you were reviewing PA books did they come direct from PA, or were the authors sending 'em to you?

[DaveKuzminski]

Name one PublishAmerica book by an author who is not a staff member at PublishAmerica that can be found right now in more than one store in a brick and mortar Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, or other large bookstore chain generally found in most states. That way, anyone visiting this forum can leave their home or office, walk or drive to the nearest such store, and view the book for themselves as evidence of what you claim.

I'll tell you what. If that book is in the nearest store to me, I'll even buy a copy and state publicly that I did so. Remember, though, the book has to be there now.

Okay, so what's the title and ISBN that I should seek? I'm waiting. Need a day or two to reply? No problem. I'm very patient when facts are being presented.

[marky48]

Dave I think you'll have to drive to Lincoln, Nebraska where I'm told by one Laurel Johnson, an unhappy but still supportive PA author, that PODs from many companies are sitting on shelves there.

iUniverse has its headquarters there and I suspect she works for them. I was also surprised when she found it funny that I took offense to an offer from a poster friend to blow my brains out even if it was in jest, (I think?) over on the "exile" board. Strange bunch, but then we've come a long way in the last three years. One other PA author from Kansas was reviewed by Library Journal, and managed to get Meiners to lower the price of her book. That's doesn't happen often. Exceptions rarely make the rule.

Check out the Bronx efforts of the crudely-spelling Robert Amaroso. I think he's bought enough of his own books to get signings but the PA can't fill the orders for them. I bet he has a copy sitting around.

Since when does a pdf file count as a galley? The file I got for my proofs wouldn't even open, twice. They had to burn me a CD. I could only conclude that this is the venue of choice, if ever. What's standard about that?

[Deejay816]

I don't know about anyone else, but I bought copies of my own book to send to reviewers rather than telling them they must request a copy - then they'd only receive it if PA approved of the choice. How embarrassing to let a reviewer know that the "publisher" did not think they were good enough to receive a copy. And, how many publishers actually expect reviewers to request copies? How many legitimate reviewers will actually go to the trouble of asking when other publishers send them more than enough books for review?

Deejay

[aka eraser]

My publisher encouraged me to suggest venues for sending review copies. They sent to all their "usual suspects" but involved me in the process too, which I very much appreciated.

I sent in a list of about a dozen magazines and newspapers, primarily in Canada since my pub is American and had those bases covered.

I then contacted those on my list to introduce myself and my book and tell them they could expect a copy within a couple of weeks. I was VERY pleased to get 3 responses saying they had already requested review copies based on the publisher's catalogue.

One magazine editor contacted me about 3 weeks later saying he had not received his copy. I emailed my editor who Fedex-d one out that day.

The next day the mag editor wrote to thank me. The NEXT day, he wrote again to say that 2 more copies had arrived, one from the American publicity folks and another from the Canucks. Overkill, sure, but in a good way.

It's unfathomable that PA wouldn't send a review copy of that guy's book to the beer site.

[James D Macdonald]

Just so everyone's clear here, the book in question is The Beer Drinker's Guide to Survival. A review copy was requested by beer.com (after the author contacted the site), and that site was refused a copy.

The Beer Drinker's Guide to Survival.

If Google links are to be believed, beer.com is linked to by twenty times more sites than PublishAmerica is. A review at beer.com, where everyone is presumably already interested in beer, would be invaluable to anyone who wanted to get sales for this book, particularly since it wouldn't be on the shelves in a bookstore (more on this below).

Instead, when Jeff J. Bonomo wrote to ask, Infocenter came back with an insulting little message. The "As you know" locution (repeated twice!) boils down to "What are you, stupid"? The suggestion that failing to fulfill this request implies that they had sent other review copies defies sense and logic. "...probably without positive results" implies it's the author's fault. The last sentence, "Funny you didn't mention that part of the story," is accusing the author of bad faith, of lying by omission.

There's been some discussion here of whether PA books are stocked in bookstores. This attempt by Mr. Bonomo to get his book reviewed by a legitimate site with a legitimate interest isn't the first time he's had cause to ask a question of PA. Earlier on, he'd contacted his local Walden's to see about getting it shelved there. The manager promised to order some copies. Afterward: "I talked to the manager and he said he ordered the books from Ingram almost a month ago and has not received them." The manager suggested that he contact PA to find out what the problem was.

PA's response was that the bookstore manager was lying.

I feel sorry for Mr. Bonomo. His book is overpriced ($14.95 for an 81 page book!), it's not available in his local bookstore, review copies aren't getting sent out, and his publisher feels that it's okay to insult him in public.

Oh, yeah. One more thing. It's not listed by the Library of Congress.

[marky48]

Isn't the customer....ah author always wrong?

[HapiSofi]

Sounds to me like PublishAmerica is in violation of their contract with Mr. Bonomo. (Arguably, they have abandoned it.) They refuse to do the most basic sales promotion and publicity, and when he arranges for bookstore distribution, the books aren't shipped.

The existence of a few printed copies means nothing. If you won't sell and you won't ship, you aren't acting as the publisher.

[tunskit]

Whoa! Hold up there, tunskit! Are you saying that all of the requests by reviewers for copies of your book were turned down by PA?


I don't know if they would have sent copies. I never received the promotion packet others have mentioned, so I couldn't find the 800 number to request reviews. I emailed the so-called Author Support Team for the number, but they never replied to my email. Shocking, isn't it? At that time, I couldn't get my username and password to work on PA boards to ask the PA authors for the number, so I just gave up...after three emails to AST.

On a side note, I finally had to sign up for a new username and password to be able to respond to any of the messages. By that time, I figured why bother, since the book has been out since February 2003, and I'm not all that anxious to sell a PA book--even my own.

[aussiesauce]

Have five unhappy authors replied to this thread?

[tunskit]

Well, I went to read the beer.com thread and tried to post a question. Mysteriously, my password doesn't match my username. Strange, isn't it? It just worked a few days ago. I tried several times. I guess I've been banned. Oh, how will I go on?

Here was the question I tried to post on thread (mainly in response to Infocenter's post)

www.publishamerica.com/cg...n/7984.htm (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/main/7984.htm)


Who does Publish America send review copies to automatically? I haven't received any reviews aside from places where I requested. Should I be expecting review copies from other venues, such as Publishers Weekly, etc.? If so, the reviews are months late, since the book came out in Feb. Any information is appreciated.

Also, what is the 800-number for reviewers to request a copy? I have been unable to find it, and the emails I sent to AST never received a reply.

Thanks!

[marky48]

I was right behind you, but by the time the book was released I had already been put on the black list. At least as far as doing me any favors if that is how they see it.They banned you from the board recently because they've read your posts here. Dissent is not allowed.

My initial complaint was concerning the author's copies not containing a table of contents. I hit the roof at support from the website, and tried to cancel the whole thing, but they wouldn't let me. I had to add the TOC myself and was told, they'd put it in. I don't know if they did. "I didn't understand the editing process, they said. I thought they had one. Think they'd send review copies after that start?

Promotion is just the 100-name list. That's it. It is doubtful they even know who reviews these books. With only one author listed with Library Journal how many are sent there by PA in time? Kirkus wouldn't accept them at all. Seems to me if you don't have someone lined up they sure don't.

[James D Macdonald]

Could you tell me the title of the PA book that got a Library Journal review, and, more important, when it happened?

There was a time, only a couple of years ago, when no one knew what to make of PoD. Xlibris had a book reviewed in the Sunday New York Times Book Review. Bertlesman bought Xlibris, Time/Warner started iPublish, Barnes&Noble bought a big chunk of iUniverse.

It was a time of hope, it was a time of promise.

It was only later that the dreadful reality started to sink in.

[marky48]

"Craven Images" Nancy Mehl 2001 I believe. It was that indeed.

[James D Macdonald]

Right, Graven Images by Nancy Mehl, October 2001. ISBN: 1588515958. Not listed by the Library of Congress.

For a while there it looked like PoD was going to be a reasonable choice for authors. It turned out not to be. By the looks of it Nancy Mehl could have chosen to go the traditional route.

Well, if you're going to be a pioneer, sometimes you wind up being eaten by bears.

[marky48]

She has the best presentation I've seen yet for a PA book, well, except mine. But then, I have no reviews at all. I don't think she's approaching traditional publishers even now based on what she told me. Very timid about identifying herself to me. It took three days I believe.

As a biologist who wrote a book about pioneers in Alaska and was one, I know a thing or two about bears. The real ones never ate me.

[goomee]

There is another PA author who was reviewed by Library Journal. She is a regular at mindsight also.

[RebelWriter]

If they sent review copies out all over the place, and also press releases. Why don't they prove it? I'd like to see it and I know you would. Tell us PA where they are, we can check it out. You lie. What magazines, reviewers, sites, newspapers, who? Show us. You keep it silent, because you know there isn't anything to show. If you are right prove it. Not just one or two, but lots. Say you are right we are wrong. Prove it!
They can't do it. But they will continuously lie about it. Still biting the hand that feeds them. Any way to prove how many books are sold and how much is really due the writers? Some of the printers wont tell the writers, covering the publishers tail.
Even on the online stores, most have no cover and no synopsis for readers to decide if they want it or not. I know what I want for the holidays this year. ....

[James D Macdonald]

Okay, decided to go looking. In addition to Nancy Mehl (reviewed April 2002):

Nancy Marie, When You Wish Upon A Star, reviewed April 2002.

(I believe that Ms. Marie wasn't 100% satisfied with the job that PA did on her book.)

<hr />

Found something interesting in my search: https://cs.ala.org/publicprograms/authorlibrary/publist.cfm

Check to see which publisher won't supply books for a booksale at a library in conjunction with an author visit.

[marky48]

Exceptions never make the rule. The online presentations of PA books are abyssmal. When I mentioned that to Todd Hunter at mindsight he said that it "doesn't matter." He also said that placement in bookstores didn't matter. I agree: Nothing they do will matter with a PA product.

For many PA people "Midwest Book Reviews" is helping them appear legitimate. That's Laurel Johnson of Lincoln, NB. Part of the PA group. She's going with 1st books next time so she's moved on. Get the idea?

[James D Macdonald]

0.06% of PA books got reviewed by Library Journal.

As HapiSofi pointed out about bookstore shelving, this is screaming proof that PA books don't get major reviews. Being able to point to one or two, eighteen months ago, might mislead the people who ought to know better. PA should have thousands of Library Journal, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus reviews by now -- if they were a traditional publisher.

The Midwest Book Review has its place. Its mission is to review small-press and self-published works. The reviews it gives are generally happy reviews, its reviewers are not professional reviewers. (If you wanted to be a Midwest Book Review reviewer and get free books thereby, all you have to do is sign up.) Some of the reviewers seem to do good business reselling their review copies used on Amazon.

If the best or only review you get is the Midwest Book Review, my friends, that's sad.

[marky48]

Interesting. Even iUniverse will supply books. PA won't.

/cs.ala.org/publicprogram...cfm?ID=108 (https://cs.ala.org/publicprograms/authorlibrary/pdetail.cfm?ID=108)

[DaveKuzminski]

Tough, huh, Popper20? No problem, I'll give you some more time.

Hey, maybe you're holding off on revealing the title and ISBN until Halloween to scare us? Now that would be a great trick.

[popper20]

Hold on now; I can only catch one foul ball at a time. But this is too easy. You are all, just, well, again, this is just too easy! Kuzminski, you're not in our league. Too simple. Hapi and Marky, please don't reply with made up baloney. Now let's address the LoC. Next lesson will be on bookstore stocking!

Hapi,
>>About the Library of Congress refusing to accept PA's
>>books? No mistake there. They don't accept them.

Yes, mistake there. Big mistake there. You're stooping to Victoria's level, pouting and whining about something you obviously know nothing about.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Here's the Library of Congress explaining the difference, at cip.loc.gov/cip/cipfaq.html#relate: (http://cip.loc.gov/cip/cipfaq.html#relate:)

"How does the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) program relate to Copyright?
There is no relationship between the CIP program and Copyright registration. The principal intention of copyright records is to document the intellectual or creative ownership of a work. The principal intention of a CIP record is to describe the bibliographic characteristics of a work and thereby facilitate access to it in library catalogs.

For more information concerning the Copyright Office, go to www.loc.gov/copyright/. (http://www.loc.gov/copyright/.) To search copyright records, go to www.loc.gov/copyright/search/." (http://www.loc.gov/copyright/search/.")

Now, kiddies, listen carefully. All you have to do is:

1 - Go to that search page.
2 - Look for PublishAmerica titles or authors.
3 - You will find them there.
4 - Now count them.
5 - There should be 5,000 of them!

Is that simple enough for you? You could seriously boost your credibility joining the ice cream conspiracy guys.

Again, common knowledege, check facts, apologize, etc.

[marky48]

Well, Popper you damn near broke the platitude/cliche bank on that one. Hard to stray from the script isn't it?

Like apples do you ?

While it common knowledge that anyone can offically copyright anything with the LOC copyright office for $30, at least it was when I did it last, it is another matter altogether to have them put a copy in the library itself and be cataloged. They just won't accept any old crap with covers for that. How do like those apples?

[DaveKuzminski]

Can't give just one title and ISBN?

That's all you were asked for. Instead, you tried to shift the topic to a discussion that I'm not in your league. Excuse me, but you're the one who's incapable of hitting the ball out of the park. I'd say you struck out. Worse yet, I threw you an easy pitch.

Yes, you're right. We're not in the same league. You're clearly still not ready for little league, let alone anything beyond that.

You should have stuck with the easy question.

[emeraldcite]

popper:

you're pretending the apples are oranges.


Yes, mistake there. Big mistake there. You're stooping to Victoria's level, pouting and whining about something you obviously know nothing about.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Here's the Library of Congress explaining the difference, at cip.loc.gov/cip/cipfaq.html#relate:

"How does the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) program relate to Copyright?
There is no relationship between the CIP program and Copyright registration. The principal intention of copyright records is to document the intellectual or creative ownership of a work. The principal intention of a CIP record is to describe the bibliographic characteristics of a work and thereby facilitate access to it in library catalogs.


i believe the original claim was that PA books were not in the library of congress. X said nothing about copyrights. But thank you for pointing out the obvious with the quote above.

i could photocopy my ass and copyright it, but that doesn't mean the LoC will accept it into the stacks.

[marky48]

I admire work work emeraldcite.

[battlechaser]

catalog.loc.gov/ (http://catalog.loc.gov/)


I did a search (twice) using the above web site using an ISBN from a simple PA book and there were no results found.

Make sure you cover all loose ends before commiting to a deal.
LOC's to my knowledge cost a fee, so unless it comes with the book deal, one will have to pay for separately.

On another note, people should be supporting one another, you yourselves as writers know if your backed into a corner the wolverine in you can inflict insane pain.

A poem from me to you all:

The Friendship

An open field
with an only tree
held an apple
on a strong branch.

Until one day
a lonely boy set it free
and brought it back
to his homely ranch.

The boy examined
the apple with pride
and found it to be
a great find.

So he polished
the apple’s rough hide
until with friendship
the apple shined.

The shiny apple
was adored by the boy
so he stored it
on the shelf.

And now the boy
is filled with joy
because friendship
shined upon himself.

©2003 Anthony Schmidt

[marky48]

Tony, trust me you don't know what you're dealing with here, but correct on the charge. These are real crooks; two-bit yes but crooks nonetheless. We attempt not to pay for anything. Yours won't be there either.

[DaveKuzminski]

Okay, since you're not very good at this, we'll give you another up at bat.

If there are only five unhappy authors who were published by PublishAmerica, then why are there more than five in the poll asking about that in this forum? Could it be that you miscounted? If that's the case, how do we know you counted the other number accurately?

Personally, you better hope that lots of writers don't decide to sign up with PublishAmerica for the two free copies of their book and then not sell any copies to anyone. You could go broke quick, couldn't you?

[James D Macdonald]

Ah, Popper20. You're back. Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Meiners, Mr. Clopper, or someone else?

No one said that PA books weren't copyrighted. They are, at the authors' expense.

PA books, however, are not listed in the Library of Congress.

That's because PublishAmerica is a vanity press.

When PublishAmerica claims that they are not a vanity press, they are lying.

When PublishAmerica claims that they are a traditional press, they are lying.

As long as you're here, Popper, you've been asked a good number of specific questions. Would you like to try answering them?

Here's another: Who's Ani-Michelle, anyway?

[HapiSofi]

Popper, I raise my little finger in your general direction. I've been a publishing pro a lot longer than you've been a bunco-steerer for vanity presses.

You'd like to dismiss me because you can't argue with my point: that your citation of a few copies of a few PA titles in your local bookstore proves that PA doesn't get bookstore distribution. Given the number of general-interest titles PA "publishes", if it had any kind of bookstore distribution deal your local stores ought to have multiple copies of hundreds of titles. Eight copies of five titles proves you've got nothing of the sort.

Let's rehearse our main points:

1. PublishAmerica is a POD vanity press that happens to have an exceptionally slick line of blarney.

2. PublishAmerica doesn't get bookstore distribution. It lies about that to its authors. The tiny scattering of PA titles that do get into bookstores do so solely on account of their authors' efforts. PA does jack.

3. PublishAmerica's titles aren't listed by the Library of Congress because it's a POD vanity press. 'Nuff said.

4. You're here for two reasons: to try to bully PA's critics into silence, and to lie about these points.

And by the way, I used to prepare copyright pages for a biggish trade publisher, and I know more about CIP data and copyright registration than you're ever going to know this side of an intensive course. You'll do yourself less harm if you knock off that line of BS right now.

[HapiSofi]

I'm sorry, Marky, it's taken me this long to assimilate those remarks you quoted:

The online presentations of PA books are abysmal. When I mentioned that to Todd Hunter at mindsight he said that it "doesn't matter." He also said that placement in bookstores didn't matter.

Is he out of his mind? Of course they matter! You don't have to be a marketing genius to know that. You just have to think like a reader. We judge books by their presentation, and rightly so. We also judge them by where we find them. In normal bookselling, both those things are semiotically complex sets of signals that help us sort out what kind of book is this and am I likely to enjoy it.

If this Todd Hunter is an author, he's taking a characteristic auctorial folly -- "If people will just read my book, I know they'll love it" -- to new heights.

[popper20]

Hapi,
Another little tempest in a tiny little teapot? You're getting wronger all the time. Please check your facts and apologize. You wonder why I'm "rude?" You have no "main points." You're making up things!

1 - Random House prints more books on demand than PA does.
2 - That's so far off it's not worthy of response. See PA msg brd and hundreds of bookstores nationwide.
3 - The reason PA's books aren't listed with the LoC is simply because only large publishing houses tend to register their books there. It costs and is time consuming, and most publishers do not register books there.

But it's important to note just how totally wrong you all are. The LoC has no criteria whatsoever, and does not "accept" or "reject" books from any publisher. The LoC takes all that will pay the fee. To suggest otherwise is just plain ridiculous.

Common knowledege, check facts, apologize, etc.

[absolutewrite]

I haven't read through this whole thread-- just noticed James' question to me:

Yo, Jenna! You around? Back in the days when you were reviewing PA books did they come direct from PA, or were the authors sending 'em to you?

Authors! Authors! One time (ONE time) PA sent us a book on request. All of the others came from the authors.

[writingal]

When I was on the features staff at a daily paper we had a policy to not review PA and other self published books. Because really, that's what PA is, under the guise of no fees (but selling overpriced books to authors). Nevertheless, many were sent to us by authors for review. Not once was one sent by PA.

Another note: A friend has a manuscript he's trying to sell and he retained the services of an "agent." This agent called him, excited, and said she had a contract for him with PA. He was excited, too, until I explained to him what PA is all about. So there are agents out there who are trying to make money off unsuspecting authors by getting contracts with PA.

[marky48]

"You're getting wronger?" I've only seen this used by one poster ever and it was in a response to my warning at the PA mesage board.

In that instance, the quote was "marky1 you couldn't be more wronger." The author was Diana Hignutt, i.e. Moonsword.

My record on these predictions in this affair is 0/2 so far, but she may have been tapped for this detail. Popper20 can only recite the propaganda from the website, like a brainwashed cult member. Guessing true indenties of these defenders is difficult, but we know who is pulling their strings.

[marky48]

Hapi, anyone that can use "semiotically complex sets of signals" in a sentence is someone I'm proud to know. We're glad your here.

[vstrauss]

Writingal, I'd be very interested to know who the agent is--I try to keep track of agents who place books with PA, as, if nothing else, PA placement is a mark of unprofessionalism...if you don't want to post the name here, contact me privately: beware@sfwa.org. Thanks.

- Victoria
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

[marky48]

For a trip down the PA memory lane the quote above is in the middle of the thread. It illustrates clearly how difficult these people are to convince. One even thinks PA is in the top 20% of sales nationwide. It's that sad. I noticed one writer there who claimed to have an agent, "shortie" is her screen name.

www.publishamerica.com/cg...ge/747.htm (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/lounge/747.htm)

A true believer's faith in his own misconceptions can be a tough obsticle.

[James D Macdonald]

1 - Random House prints more books on demand than PA does.

Oh, the weasel-wording! Recall that the charge you're attempting to respond to wasn't "PublishAmerica is a POD press," it was "PublishAmerica is a POD vanity press."

Random House isn't a vanity press. Random House takes returns. Random House distributes books to bookstores. Random House edits its books. Random House is selective in what works it buys. Random House prices its works competitively. Random House promotes its authors. Random Houses's books are reviewed. Random House pays royalties based on cover price. Random House makes its money selling books to consumers. Random Houses' books are listed in the Library of Congress.

The printing technology is irrelevant. It's the business model, Popper. The business model!

The PA business model is the vanity press.

Here's how the scam works:

PA knows that on average an author will be able to sell around 75 copies of his own work to friends and family. So they set the cover price five bucks higher than any competitive publisher and reap the unearned profits. The five-bucks-a-copy is the vanity press fee, extracted from the author. Each author, either personally or through his family and friends, on average, pays a $375 printing fee. That's in the same ballpark as iUniverse, Xlibris, 1stBooks, and all the rest. The difference between PA and those other PoD vanity presses is that they're honest about what they're doing, and don't have quite as bad a contract.

I really love the way PA pressures their authors to buy their own books. How about that "advance" for the best selling author each month (buying your own books counts toward the total!) that we saw last spring, and now this "Independence Books" plan, where if the author sells more than 500 books (buying your own books counts!) PA will consider making their book returnable.

Pushing the writers to buy their own copies to send to reviewers is another part of the scheme. Authors buy own books = vanity press. Authors pay for own publication = vanity press. PublishAmerica = vanity press.

Simple enough for you?

2 - That's so far off it's not worthy of response. See PA msg brd and hundreds of bookstores nationwide.

Pertinent, dead on, and something that PA doesn't dare debate. PA books don't get national distribution, don't get shelved in bookstores, and aren't being bought by the general public. Any time you see a PA book in a bookstore it's because the author came by in person and begged. See, for example, the whole sad story of Jeff Bonomo and his <a href="http://www.jeffbonomo.com/" target="_new">Beer Drinker's Guide to Survival</a> (mentioned previously upthread) on Jeff's own web page. "They [his local Waldenbooks] are only getting more in as they are ordered. So if you ask for 1 copy that's all that they'll stock." Jeff hasn't yet figured out that it isn't him, it isn't his book, and it isn't Walden's -- it's his publisher. (For the typical trajectory of a PA author, start reading Jeff's page at the bottom and work up -- the happy news, I'm going to be published! Then reality starts to set in ... that's the point he's at right now. Pretty soon, he'll figure out the real story. Then he won't be a happy PA author any more.) I recently went into the largest Barnes & Noble in my state with a list of PA's top fifteen best sellers (per Amazon) and a list of all of PA's new releases for that month (per PA's website). Not a single one of them was on the shelf! How about that?

But you mentioned threads on PA's board. Let's see.... like <a href="http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/lounge/1122.htm" target="_new">this one</a>, subject "Book availabilty"?

Some pertinent quotes from that thread, in case it suddenly vanishes: "I need help. How does one go about having Barnes and Noble stock your books? ... Also how can I get PublishAmerica to answer my phone calls and e-mails?" ... "I have had good luck with the local Barnes & Noble about ordering my book but many of my friends have never recieved theirs and it's been 2 months." ... "I have been waiting for a response also."

3 - The reason PA's books aren't listed with the LoC is simply because only large publishing houses tend to register their books there. It costs and is time consuming, and most publishers do not register books there.

I really love shifting the ground from PA books are listed in the Library of Congress to We don't choose to get listed in the Library of Congress. When you get caught in a bald-faced lie, you change your story. " ...only large publishing houses tend to register their books there." Only the weasel-words "tend to" keeps this from being another flat-out lie. "...and most publishers do not register books there" is misleading in that "most" publishers don't publish books at all. Side note: A thousand titles a year ought to qualify PA as a "large publishing house." Typical mendacious PA Infocenter blather.

Oh -- one more thing -- who's Ani-Michelle?

[James D Macdonald]

Hey, Marky --

In that thread you linked to, I couldn't help noticing the lady who asked, "How did PA get the reputation for being a POD company anyway? Does anyone know? "

Gee, can anyone help her out?

Maybe I can try. PA got the reputation for being a POD company by being a POD company.

POD means Print On Demand in this context. (Print on Demand, Publish on Demand, same darned thing. A distinction without a difference.)

A Print On Demand book is only printed when a book is ordered. This saves on warehousing for books with a low demand. The problem is that creating demand isn't easy.

For certain highly-specialized nonfiction, the demand occurs when someone starts looking for references. If I were a religious scholar, I might actively seek out, pay handsomely for, and wait a fair amount of time to get A Compendium of the Heresies of Asia Minor in the Thirteenth Century. The existence of the title on a list is sufficient to create demand.

For others, the motivational speaker who sells copies of his book from the back of the hall after he makes his presentation, the poet who has a box of her chapbooks with her on open-mike night at the local cafe, print-on-demand makes sense. Those authors are hand-selling books to specific audiences; they don't need a garage full of cartons. They need a way to run off twenty at a time.

For yet others -- the folks putting together a church cookbook, the guy writing a family history, the lady doing a town history -- where the demand is small, known, and local, Print On Demand makes sense.

Print On Demand makes no sense at all for someone writing general fiction for the general market. There's no shortage of romances, mysteries, or thrillers coming out from major houses, available at competitive prices right there on the shelf in your local bookstore, each with an implicit guarantee that someone other than the author and his mom liked the book.

Notice the theme running through all this: Print on Demand is incompatible with bookstore shelving and distributor warehousing. It isn't designed to support that model. It's logically inconsistent.

Any claims by a POD company that their books are routinely stocked by bookstores must therefore, by their nature, be false.

[James D Macdonald]

A further thought on this attempt at deft footwork:

1 - Random House prints more books on demand than PA does.

This is because Random House prints a heck of a lot of books, while PA doesn't print many at all. (How many copies per title, Popper? Under a hundred?)

All it would take to make Popper's statement literally true would be for Random House to use digital printing technology to run off its advance reading copies and uncorrected galleys.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that they do just that; it's a reasonable use for the tech.

"Literally true but deliberately misleading" is how I'd characterize most of what PA puts out in their advertising and in their Infocenter responses to heartbroken authors.

[marky48]

And that is precisely what I've just told the Attorney General. But since we have PA support here I offer their response to me.

"Dear Mr. York,

Normally we don't even respond to occasional preposterous bits of comedy that may show up on the web. The organization to which you are apparently referring with your "bad press" comment has long ago lost credibility, and
it would appear that they are rarely taken seriously. We've seen their antics mocked many many times.

Your comments are so far from reality that we must mention the word comedy for the second time in this message. Please check your facts before flailing about with wildly inaccurate accusations. You are far to easy to refute!

We have no "litany" of bad anything, and certainly not "bad press". PublishAmerica is stronger than ever. Some time ago, we partnered with Ingram, the world's largest book distributor. We also partnered with Barnes and Noble, the nation's largest bookstore chain. We are giving interviews
to the press on a regular basis, and newspapers write articles about our authors almost every day. That's all good press. Thousands of instances of it.

As for bookstore stocking, you're way off there too. Below is some more information about bookstores and their stocking policies. Also, it might be beneficial for you to read this thread on our message board...

www.publishamerica.com/cg...n/6654.htm (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/main/6654.htm)

...especially the post from Infocenter. It may be of interest to you that less than one percent of all authors ever see their books stocked by bookstores at all. For bookstores to stock all books published would mean adding 15 feet of new shelf space every day. Therefore bookstore managers must be selective, so they decide based on what that they think will sell.

If they do think it will sell, they will stock it, and vice versa. So, if your book is romance and the store's shelves are overflowing with romance novels, the odds are they won't stock it. And, if your book is a history of agriculture in Tupelo County, Mississippi, the bookstore manager in Seattle
may feel the same way.

Thousands, each and every month, of PublishAmerica books are sold in bookstores across the nation. Bookstores buy books from us each and every day. Barnes and Noble has quadrupled the number of books they order from
PublishAmerica during the past year, as can be seen by all the stories and reports from authors whose books are stocked. The PublishAmerica message board is overflowing with testimonials from our authors about their books being stocked in bookstores. Hundreds of bookstores across the nation
stock our books.

As for being a "POD". We're doing the same thing as all the other publishers. PublishAmerica is a traditional, advance and royalty paying publisher, sharing printing facilities with Random House, Simon and Schuster, McGraw-Hill, etc.

Like all other large publishers, we use both printing technologies, digital (aka on-demand) printing for short and very short runs, even one at a time if necessary, and offset for larger runs. Random House prints more books using digital printing than PublishAmerica does. Are they are POD
publisher? No, they are not, and neither are we.

It is unfortunate that your second word was declined. Please do not take it as criticism of your writing ability. Like most traditional publishers, our acquisitions team rejects a very high percentage of submissions, and the opinions of our team of 17 full time editors are often part of the decision
making process.

Your previous requests were not ignored, but were apparently not received. We will be happy to return your pictures, and we will be happy to address any further questions or concerns that you may have.

Thank You,

Author Support Team

They never addressed anything. BN was particularly interested in the comments on the link. In fact they requested I send them the source of the quote from it. How PA can use this a evidence in their favor is classic up-is-downism.

[emeraldcite]

It is unfortunate that your second word was declined

so they only accepted your first and third word?

[marky48]

Apparently. I just know I don't speak their language. Meanwhile Mr. Bonamo wants to know "the rest of the story." I wonder what kind of mumbojumbocrat-speak they'll use on that?

[battlechaser]

Okay people, this is just info, don't kill the messenger!

Getting back to ISBN/bar code info, I found something very interesting that many people probably don't know. ...and it comes from BN!

www.barnesandnobleinc.com/authors/advice/ac_getting.html (http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/authors/advice/ac_getting.html)

[marky48]

Been there weeks ago. That's where the stocking info comes from.

[HapiSofi]

Apologize to you, Popper? Whatever for?

Personally, I think you should apologize for throwing exactly the same little collection of insults at me that I've seen you repeatedly use before, here and elsewhere. I protest, sir; it lacks the personal touch. It lacks any panache whatsoever. In fact, it's downright dreary. Do you have no idea what a bore you are?

Answer: No, of course not. If you had any sense of yourself as a bore, you'd undoubtedly be less boring; and if that were so, you wouldn't have had to publish your own books to get them into print, and might have wound up plying an honest trade, instead of working as a con artist and bunco-steerer.

But enough about you. Let us pass on to your latest rearguard action in the course of your mendacious and disorderly retreat.

1.

I said: 1. PublishAmerica is a POD vanity press that happens to have an exceptionally slick line of blarney.

You said: 1 - Random House prints more books on demand than PA does.

Changing the subject again? No matter. PA is still a POD vanity press. It'll publish absolutely anything, no matter how terrible, because it doesn't make its money selling its titles to the general public. Its sales and promotion efforts on behalf of its books are derisory, which only stands to reason, because actual book sales aren't part of its true business plan. And you're here to try to defend the lie that PA is a real publisher that gets bookstore distribution because that's how you sell your bunkum to naive writers.

PublishAmerica does not get bookstore distribution. The tiny scattering of PA titles that turn up in bookstores are there by dint of the authors' own efforts. PA has nothing to do with it. PA can scarcely be brought to ship books to bookstores when authors make their own distribution deals with them.

On the matter of Random House: You've stated several times now that Random House prints more PODbooks than PA does. That isn't true. Random House is a legit publisher.

If what you mean is that Random House has bought into Xlibris, a POD publisher that's almost entirely a vanity house except when it isn't, they've certainly done so; but both companies have been at some pains to make it clear that that doesn't mean that Random House is publishing Xlibris' authors. You can read about it here (http://www2.xlibris.com/faq/faq_randomhouse.asp).

There. Now you know. Please don't ever make that claim again in the future.

By the way: It's possible that Random House occasionally uses recently developed technology to make up short runs of books, or run off bound galleys or ARCs, but that isn't POD publishing. It's short-run book production. Random House is a real publisher, with a sales force, bookstore distribution deals, realistic cover prices, the whole shebang. In short, it's nothing like PublishAmerica. The fact that they may occasionally use some of the same technolgy doesn't make them the same kind of publishers, no more than buying the same brand of laser printer as my corner grocer makes me a produce dealer.

2.

I said: 2. PublishAmerica doesn't get bookstore distribution. It lies about that to its authors. The tiny scattering of PA titles that do get into bookstores do so solely on account of their authors' efforts. PA does jack.

You said: 2 - That's so far off it's not worthy of response. See PA msg brd and hundreds of bookstores nationwide.

Not worthy of response? Then why do you reliably turn up any time someone on the net observes that PublishAmerica doesn't get bookstore distribution, and do your best to bully them into silence on a point you know is not true?

That's why you're here right now.

(And by the way, let me pause a moment to say that I think this policy of yours is seriously misguided. You keep getting into argument after argument, all over the net and web, with people who wind up explaining in great detail how PA is a vanity POD house whose titles don't get bookstore placement. When those online arguments are finished, their text lives on in archives. This means there are gradually going to be more and more sites where writers can find out that

PUBLISH AMERICA DOESN'T GET BOOKSTORE DISTRIBUTION, AND THEY LIE ABOUT IT TO THEIR AUTHORS,

which increases the chances that an aspiring writer will find one of these explanations before signing your appalling contract. Over the long run, it can only be bad for your business.

You should knock off this serial verbal abuser riff and just let the subject ride. Accept the fact that no one likes you, no one respects you, no one thinks you're a bigshot publisher, and no one thinks you're particularly talented or smart. Embrace the small-time grifter that you are. Take the money and run.)

(End of digression.)

There's this point I keep making, and you keep ignoring, which is that just about anyone who has a halfway decent book to sell can shoehorn a few copies of it into their local bookstores. And when I hear about people getting their PA titles shelved at this or that bookstore, it always turns out that that's exactly what's been going on. PA didn't sell the book. The authors sold it themselves.

So: The presence of a few PA titles in bookstores does not mean that PA gets bookstore distribution.

Here's another point you've ignored, which is that PA can be an active hindrance to getting books into bookstores. Look at that poor guy with his book about beer. He had a major beer-related review venue wanting to review him, and PA couldn't be bothered to send them the one piddling little review copy they requested. He's got a bookstore owner wanting to take copies, and PA can't be bothered to ship them. If he'd just gone to a local job printer and gotten the books printed there, he'd be miles better off. He'd have a reliable supply of copies. They'd be a lot cheaper than PA's overpriced product. He could sell stacks of them at his gigs, and get them placed in university district bookstores and other studenty businesses everywhere he goes.

I could also point to the case of one PA author who discovered that his medium-short novel would sell at a price point two dollars down from PA's rather inflated cover price. Would PA lower their prices? They would not, even though the lower price was entirely reasonable for a trade paperback of that length. The guy wound up buying his own copies and reselling them at a discount, just so he could get copies into readers' hands.

There are lots and lots and lots of other cases like that. No one's going to find them on the PA message board because at the first hint of trouble or dissatisfaction, PA deletes the message(s) and permanently locks that author out of the board. The PA board has booted so many authors that if you got them all together at once, they could take on the entire Packers organization in hand-to-hand combat and win.

So: PA not only doesn't get your book into bookstores; they make it harder to get it into bookstores than it would be if you published it yourself.

And here's the biggest point you keep dodging, which is that the number of PA titles you yourself cited as being available in your local bookstores constitute proof that PA isn't getting distribution.

PA has published thousands of general-interest titles. Almost all of them are nominally still in print. If PA were getting any kind of bookstore distribution at all, there would have to be multiple copies of hundreds of PA titles at your bookstores. That's not arguable. Those copies would have to be there. They aren't there.

Furthermore, if PA had a bookstore distribution deal, copies of books by PA authors would be turning up in bookstores that had never been visited or contacted by those authors. That's what distribution is for, after all. Guess what? I have yet to see a case where that's happened. It's all hand-selling on the part of the author.

So: It can be clearly, objectively, and inarguably demonstrated that PA doesn't get bookstore distribution.

Funny how you keep dodging that point.

3.

I said: 3. PublishAmerica's titles aren't listed by the Library of Congress because it's a POD vanity press. 'Nuff said.

You said: 3 - The reason PA's books aren't listed with the LoC is simply because only large publishing houses tend to register their books there. It costs and is time consuming, and most publishers do not register books there.

Lord almighty, you lie like a rug. (You also constantly make stuff up out of thin air, which might explain why you constantly accuse others of doing so.) Most publishers don't register their books with the LoC? What have you been smoking?

You're trying to change the grounds of the argument here because you've got nothing to stand on. You're talking as though it were PA's decision not to lists its books with the Library of Congress. The reason they're not listed is that Library of Congress won't list them. Why not? Because PA is a POD vanity publisher.

But suppose that's wrong. Suppose the LoC were willing to accept PA titles, and PA just hasn't bothered to do it. In that case, PA are a bunch of miserable irresponsible sods who owe all their authors an apology.

I'll go with it either way.

[James D Macdonald]

Well, well, well. Whaddaya know!

The PA messageboard thread I linked to and quoted from yesterday has vanished! Even though it was current and active (first post on 10/16/03, last post on 10/28/03).

Does that confirm Popper20 as a PA staffer? No, it doesn't confirm it, but it sure does add another bit of evidence as to who Popper reports to.

Yo, Popper! That wasn't the first or the only thread on PA's own messageboards detailing how PublishAmerica can't get books into bookstores, how bookstores won't accept PA titles, how the moment a bookstore manager hears the words "Publish America," his eyes glaze, the shields go up, and the hapless author gets the bum's rush. It won't be the last.

Well, that's one more happy PA author on the way to being an unhappy PA author. But what do you care, right? He's probably already sold his 75 copies to the guys in the carpool and his bowling league, and mom and dad and Auntie Sue. He's played out. Time to go get some fresh meat.

Who's Ani-Michelle?

[marky48]

Masterful. And Mr. Meiners the Maryland AG has your contract. Don't worry about "out of context" defenses or anything like that. Context only makes you look worse. I expect before this through you'll either be in jail or back in Amsterdam with your finger in the dike. But it won't hold forever.

[marky48]

Since this response from BN has been buried on the other board I'll place it at the top for those new to the argument. It comes from personal correspondence through that very BN page.

Hello,

BN.COM does not stock POD books unless the sales are such that warehouse stock is warranted. The number of titles that fit that bill is minute. Yes major publishers use digital printing but not in the sense that Publish America does. Random, Simon etc, actually hold stock of books in their warehouse opposed to sending a file over to Lightening source to print.

Publish America may not be a typical vanity press since they do more, however neither are they a traditional publisher. Barnes and Noble stores do not generally stock POD books, that is an antithesis to the very meaning of print on demand. Once in a while, there is a pod title that will sell very well and the stores may make an exception and carry the title. That, however, is up to the store.

As taken from the BN website:

Print-on-demand titles: with over one million titles already in print, and another 50,000 or more published every year, we obviously cannot carry every book that is published. Indeed, the key to print-on-demand technology is that it enables publishers to keep a vast number of titles in print and available without stocking inventory. Print-on-demand titles will continue to be featured on the Barnes & Noble.com website, and available for customer orders in our stores.



The above response was answering this infocenter reply to its authors on the PA mbd. I quoted it and BN asked for the link to the source.

"BN is a commercial institution, out to make money. They have not been doing too great lately, overall sales down 4 pct in February, 8 pct in March, 2 pct in April, and 0.5 pct in May. Their BN.com enterprise does even worse, they had to decide to cut their operation expenses by 50 pct, because the unit continues to lose money. Add to this their B. Dalton daughter's results: sales down more than 11 pct.

And that's not all. BN is also a 49 pct owner of vanity publisher iUniverse, an outfit that, while lavishly funded by venture capital (last year they received a $18 million injection), has yet to make a profit.

So there's your landscape. BN is willing to sell books, not only because that is the business they're in, but because they have to. Do they sell print-on-demand books? You bet. They run their own on-demand presses, and they are now doing the printing of an ever-growing number of PA titles themselves, because they sell so well! Other titles they order either directly from us, or from wholesaler Ingram who prints them at their own outfit Lightning Source. In fact, BN is one of PA's largest customers, placing orders virtually every day.

The message that some of you advocate to be issued to their local store managers has actually already been issued through BN's internal channels. Each store manager knows, or is supposed to know, where and how to order PA titles, and the majority of them does so regularly. If you delve into the history of this message board, you will find numerous examples of authors who arranged events in BN stores with great success.

Does this mean that all local managers are helpful and pro-active? No, not always. We don't know for sure, but we suspect that there is some truth to the grapevine rumor that some managers detest BN's commitment to iUniverse. They had so many authors come up with substandard quality books that they paid a small fortune for to be published, books that sell badly but that BN stores are expected to order from their own on-demand printers regardless, that they go postal whenever their computer screen says "print on demand".

It is BN that has some internal educating to do, and at a headquarters level they are aware of this. BN headquarters continues to instruct their store managers that on-demand printing is the wave of the future (hence BN's heavy investments in on-demand printing equipment). They also show on their computer databases that all (!) PA titles can safely be ordered, together with the on-demand printed titles of the majority of our fellow traditional publishers, including Random House, Simon&Schuster, HarperCollins, etc.

We continue to maintain excellent relations with BN headquarters, and they assure us that more letterhead-carrying paperwork is unnecessary to underscore a corporate policy that is already in place, and we believe they're right because the sales numbers show it.

Need a little consolation for those who still run into a brick wall? BN has recently forced their vanity daughter iUniverse to drastically cut back on the number of titles that automatically qualify for special BN treatment, from many thousands down to a few hundred. Over time, this will help to ease the nerves of store managers who are only human. They will eventually know how to distinguish between vanity published books and traditionally published books such as PA's. Just give those poor souls some time. They will come around."

[James D Macdonald]

"... BN is also a 49 pct owner of vanity publisher iUniverse..."

That doesn't seem to be exactly true. Per Barnes & Noble's filings with the SEC, they only have a 22% share in iUniverse.

<a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/890491/000095012302011880/y66734e10vq.htm" target="_new">www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/890491/000095012302011880/y66734e10vq.htm</a>

Perhaps Infocenter was thinking of enews, inc.? B&N has a 49% interest in them.

Interestingly enough, I've heard that vanity PoD iUniverse's private authors' message board is full of the same kinds of complaints as vanity PoD PA's message board. Sisters under the skin, I guess.

I haven't looked closely at the other numbers PA gives in its letter. A little research there might prove fruitful.

[marky48]

I've never looked at the iU mesage board. That may be interesting? Not much doing, just this about the increase from $199 to $459. It was $99 two years ago. This fits into James's formula quite well I'd say.

community.iuniverse.com/w...1?mode=day (http://community.iuniverse.com/writers/discuss/msgReader$61?mode=day)

[James D Macdonald]

More on B&N's finances.

This data is taken from B&N's SEC 10-Q and 10-K filings.

(Dollar figures in thousands)

Gross Profit, all stores (Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton, and others)(Gross sales - cost of goods and occupancy)

1998 $862,891
1999 $1,002,314
2000 $1,206,080
2001 $1,310,352
2002 $1,413,493

So, gross profits up by around a hundred million dollars a year, every year, for the past five years.

Let's get more specific, the claims about this year (it was this year, right, Marky?)

Gross sales (dollars in thousands)

13 weeks ending May 3, 2003
$1,185,605

Compare that to the same quarter, previous year:

13 weeks ending May 3, 2002
$1,133,126

Up 4.6% from the previous year.

Now let's look at the 13 weeks ending Aug 2, 2003:

Gross sales (dollars in thousands)

$1,283,243

Compare to the 13 weeks ending Aug 3, 2002:

$1,159,214

So in August of this year, we see B&N's gross sales up 8% from the previous quarter, and up 10% from the same quarter the previous year.

That doesn't sound like a company that has "not been doing too great lately."

Yes, B. Dalton showed a decrease in gross sales. This was due to store closings. There were fewer physical B. Dalton stores selling stuff. Overall, all B&N stores, including B. Dalton, showed strong increases in sales and profits.

In short, PA's information was misleading, or wrong, in every case.

Check the financials yourself <a href="http://ir.shareholder.com/bks/edgar.cfm" target="_new">here</a>.

[marky48]

Yes that's correct. PA was forecasting impending doom for BN and, many on the boards there have said the same of "Simon & Shooster"[sic]. Doesn't hold up to scrutiny very well does it?

[James D Macdonald]

I could be wrong about this, since PA didn't say what exactly they were using as a baseline, but I think they were comparing B&N's monthly gross sales Feb-May '03 to Christmas season, '02.

It would be interesting to ask them to support the percents they gave with numbers and dates.

[James D Macdonald]

Jeff, over on his <a href="http://www.jeffbonomo.com/" target="_new">webpage</a>, reports that now PA will send a review copy of The Beer Drinker's Survival Guide to beer.com.

Excellent job, HapiSofi. You've done your good deed for the day.

[marky48]

That's what I see. If overall monthly sales were down at a high of 8% in March, but jumped back up to 0.5 in May, that doesn't go in the direction they claim.

[vstrauss]

I think PA must have a little manual of canned responses that's available for staff to use, each response tailored to a particular situation, because the same basic info is repeated over and over in its message board responses and also in its letters to individual authors (such as the thing about the two hundred lawyers who have signed the PA contract).

However, it badly needs to update its manual. The following:

>>BN is also a 49 pct owner of vanity publisher iUniverse, an outfit that, while lavishly funded by venture capital (last year they received a $18 million injection), has yet to make a profit.<<

is a tad stale. iUniverse's $18 million cash injection happened two years ago, in October 2001. And while Barnes & Noble did own a 49% stake in iUniverse for a while, in 2000 it decreased that stake to 29%.

Just another example of PA's sterling regard for factual accuracy.

- Victoria
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

[marky48]

The repetition is necessary. If done often enough, hopefully either people will accept it as fact, or forget about it and wander off. I find this tactic used at much higher levels than fake publishers.

[emeraldcite]

it's just some good old fashion indoctrination.

[marky48]

Apparently, that promotion information I got for free when my PA book was released is no longer free.

Dear author,

Today we are announcing with great pride the release of The Published Author's Guide to Promotion. Carrying the subtitle Marketing Tips by Published Authors , it is written by 90 of your fellow PublishAmerica authors, and is based on their own personal experiences with promoting their book.

This guide is invaluable for those of us who might appreciate some guidance in how to promote ourselves as published authors. The book provides a wealth of tips, suggestions, do's and dont's, coming from your peers. It deals with virtually every aspect of being a published author in the spotlight, including

*How to become a local celebrity;
*How to do a successful radio interview;
*How to have fun with public speaking;
*How to do unconventional book signings;
*How to get all Barnes & Noble stores in ten states to stock your book.

You may secure your own copy of this very helpful and eye-opening 217-page book today, written by the experts, at a brief introductory 50 percent discount, for $9.95 , here. This offer expires Saturday, November 1st.

As announced previously, PublishAmerica will donate 10 percent of the proceeds to the PEN Freedom To Write Fund, for suppressed authors worldwide who cannot promote themselves and their work.

Enjoy the read!

www.publishamerica.com/sh...logid=3317 (http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopdisplayproducts.asp?catalogid=3317)

[James D Macdonald]

"And while Barnes & Noble did own a 49% stake in iUniverse for a while, in 2000 it decreased that stake to 29%."

B&N's investment in iU decreased to 22% in fiscal 2001. See <a href="http://ir.shareholder.com/bks/EdgarDetail.cfm?CompanyID=BKS&CIK=890491&FID=950123-02-4465&SID=02-00" target="_new">B&N's annual report for the fiscal year ended February 2, 2002</a> (page 34).

[DaveKuzminski]

Could it be their way of producing a book that becomes their bestseller so they can claim one that's sold more than three digits?

[battlechaser]

I tell ya what;
you guys can come up with some good info, I mean it.

No wonder there are PA protectors amongst this realm.

Keep up the good work; just be careful though, shattering peoples dreams is not an easy thing to forget within the dreamer..

Make sure we concentrate on the infiltrators…

[marky48]

So you're calling us dream-killers?

[tunskit]

If Tony meant those of us who post against PA are dream-killers, I have to say I don't want to stomp on anyone's dream. However, if they don't read these boards or don't listen to the warnings posted, PA will crush their dreams soon enough--all without lifting a finger.

Or maybe not. Many of the "happy" PA authors seem deluded or brainwashed. They buy into the PA litany and blame themselves for not marketing efficiently when their books fail. Or even sadder (IMO)--they celebrate selling a few copies, or get really excited about their royalty checks, when half the time, the bulk of the royalties came from the authors purchasing their own books.

I've read several sources of information on PA since realizing how foolish I was to sign the contract, and I've come to this conclusion: There is no point in trying to share your bad experience with PA, except with other unsatisfied PA authors. Some authors are truly happy and grateful PA "took a chance" on them, and nothing we say will change their minds.

[vstrauss]

This is an issue I confront a lot in my Writer Beware correspondence...people who write to me with questions about agents or publishers often don't tell me whether they're asking before or after the fact, and for writers who've already sent the check or signed the contract, the dry factual information I send back can be pretty shattering.

Where they write back to me, or where they let me know that they've already taken the plunge and are asking questions because they're having second thoughts, I try to balance the negative with something positive--such as a reassurance that they're not alone, that attracting a bad agent or publisher doesn't mean their work is worthless, that one bad experience doesn't mean they can't move on and start fresh.

Really, though, it's not those of us who blow the whistle who are the dream killers. It's the people who prey on the dream--who pretend to be agenting without any intention of really selling a manuscript, who claim to be publishing without any interest in the quality or success of the final product. Dave and Jim and Ann and I and others who speak out may speed up the realization that the dream is dead--but in the end most writers who make a bad choice are going to recognize it for themselves (or else retreat into a bitter imaginary world in which their genius goes perennially unrecognized--which really is just a substitute dream).

In fact, far from murdering writers' dreams, we whistle-blowers can help mend dreams that have been wounded. We can encourage writers to understand that they're _not_ stupid dupes for falling for a convincing line from a fraudulent agent or believing the misrepresentations of a questionable publisher. We can remind them that many, many other people have fallen into the same trap. We can show them that getting trapped doesn't mean you can't extricate yourself and move on to something better. We can give them the tools they need to avoid getting trapped again.

Most of all, we can do these things kindly and with good will--unlike those fraudulent agents and questionable publishers, who invariably turn nasty when they're questioned. We won't tell writers they are "whiners" for speaking out. We won't lambaste them for being enterprising enough to seek out alternate opinions. If they come to us after the fact, we'll let them know that the time to research is _before_ submitting--but we won't tell them they're fools or idiots for not having done so.

Of course, many writers won't believe us. For those, we aren't dream-killers, but part of the elitist clique that's hell-bent on keeping the uninitiated out of publishing. Others, in their anger at hearing things they suspect are true but can't yet accept, _will_ label us dream-killers. Speaking just for myself, this always upsets me. But it goes with the territory.

In the end, I'd say we're really more like dream fixers or dream protectors. Not just because of what we do, but because, unlike the predators, we respect the dream.

- Victoria
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

[marky48]

That's right, "dream repair" persons is more like it. The problem comes from defining what constitutes achieving the dream. Most, but as we've seen certainly not all, are rejected in the traditional system, many for good reasons. That is the norm. The trick is to get through the literary business filter somehow. Legitimately crooks like PA know that all too well since Meiners and some of his staff couldn't themselves.

I see a large number of novices that are naive people of deep belief. This leaves them ill-equipped to detect baloney crafted specifically to their dreams of becoming published. Failure is as Victoria said is laid on their shoulders, not PA. They're inherently indoctrinable. I've been told that here, had I marketed my books better, with more effort I wouldn't be the failure I am now. I'm not of course, and don't think I am in any way; never have. Facts of these self-efforts don't support that "personal responsibility" thesis.

There is a difference in being on the stage and being in the cast. The cast; movies, TV, etc. has struggled through years of failure and filtering to get a name on the stage or screen. It's the same with writing. Many think if they come out here (Hollywood) with a dream and no training they can still make it in show business. It rarely happens.

In fact it's difficult to find legitimate hiring channels at any level. Answering newspaper ads is the worst place to start but they do. All of those folks are taken for money straight out for something that costs nothing at the right office. But they don't know that. You're not in Kansas anymore, and there are those who know that and are laying in wait to exploit your dreams. Even in the legitimate channels seeing the forest for the trees is difficult even for the unscammed. How do you admit that the strategy isn't working when you're actually being paid money to sit with John Lithgow on a nationally televised sit-com? Or chasing Ice-T across the museum for pay; low pay.

You do it until an epiphany of good sense rises to the top. And of course you need the money so you sell yourself as a human prop until other efforts pay off. Provided you're pursuing those and don't think you're a star just for showing up to the play as an extra as thousands do. Not realizing you're on the wrong path to a dream is terminal. However if you do it's easy to climb back on the horse and ride on.

As an illustration for how difficult this is with the target clientel our featured PA author Mr. Bonamo has voted for PA and is a satisfied customer despite his treatment. Of course we know why. Only exposure via this discussion made this possible. If you want to be hoodwinked, it's easy.

[marky48]

PA is the only POD I've dealt with that has such an archaic "hidden" royalty records system. All I have is a stub from the mailed statement. Other PODs have an online records base where I can check to see who and where copies have sold. PA authors are wondering the very same thing.

www.publishamerica.com/cg...e/1241.htm (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/lounge/1241.htm)

[battlechaser]

This is all good info for anyone thinking about self publishing.

Good work.

[marky48]

It is important to realize that PA's claim is that they are "not" a self-publish POD service. They claim to be a traditional publisher. They're not. That's the take home lesson here. Vanities are upfront about what they are. Nothing is hidden. With PA everything is hidden or misrepresented. That's the complaint.

[marky48]

They must be asleep, the link that Dave posted at the outside board is still on the board at PA. Warns PA authors about an NBC story and over 30 complaints now.

www.publishamerica.com/cg...e/1266.htm (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/lounge/1266.htm)

[DaveKuzminski]

I wonder how many felony accounts will be enough to satisfy one author who stated that 30 dissatisfied authors out of 4000+ isn't too bad? After all, if even one count of alleged felony fraud is charged and proven true, then how does that author know that the rest of those 4000+ authors are being treated fairly?

By the way, I find it interesting that an earlier claim of 5 unhappy authors has risen so quickly to 30.

[DaveKuzminski]

Well, they've removed the four copies that I spotted earlier of the remarks I copied and posted in a topic within the Take It Outside Board.

[James D Macdonald]

*How to get all Barnes & Noble stores in ten states to stock your book.

That I would really, really like to hear, especially considering that B&N explicitly states on their own info page that they don't stock PoD books.

[battlechaser]

The following info has been found here about POD and small press.

www.barnesandnobleinc.com/authors/advice/ac_getting.html (http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/authors/advice/ac_getting.html)

Small Press:
If you would like your title to be considered for store placement, please submit a finished copy (no manuscripts please) of the book along with marketing and promotion plans, trade reviews, and a note describing how the book meets the competition (what makes it unique) to:

The Small Press Department
Barnes & Noble
122 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY 10011

The information must include the ISBN and the suggested retail price. The review process takes about 6 weeks, the Small Press Department responds to all submissions in writing.


Print-on-demand titles: with over one million titles already in print, and another 50,000 or more published every year, we obviously cannot carry every book that is published. Indeed, the key to print-on-demand technology is that it enables publishers to keep a vast number of titles in print and available without stocking inventory. Print-on-demand titles will continue to be featured on the Barnes & Noble.com website, and available for customer orders in our stores.

[marky48]

Tony, you're still way behind the curve. Did you read the stuff I've posted? These are not legitimate small presses.

Kevin at PA is unable to process the information, as are many. The answer: no amount would satisfy him. To him it's proof of an anti-PA conspiracy. I sent my CBS proposal to all of the network news shows.

[XThe NavigatorX]

You'd think people would start to say something about the admin yanking posts about an NBC news story about their company. I can understand them pulling posts where it's just someone bitching, but that's way over the top.

Sometimes I get the impression that some of the people on that message board only visit that message and never venture anywhere else on the internet. Crimeny. It's like candyland in there. I'm waiting for them to start handing out cups of Kool-Aid.

[jeffb42]

I wrote a very long response but for some reason it errored out so here's the shortened version since I'm tired.

I should chime in here
I explained to PA why they should send a copy to www.beer.com and they did. maybe it was the threads here I dunno.

I didn't know about this board until thurs morning when marlboro man posted on my guestbook. thx for showin me the forum. I'm learning alot!

so far I'm cool, with PA

www.beer.com hits my target audience
I know I wrote a silly book compared to many of you...
and I dont understand why my publisher wouldnt want to get it out to its audience. beer.com is on most rollingrock beer cases! C'mon! So I explained in an email and its all cool.


oh yeah my book was copyrighted in 1997 so it's in the LOC

I said alot more b4 but I'm tired... I work in the TV industry and we dont keep 9 to 5 hours so my wake up call comes early! Thanks for the support. Maybe the threads here about my problem did make the difference!
:rolleyes

[jeffb42]

it's very weird that people are talkin about "my sad story" without me knowing about it.


like I said. I'm learning more & more every day.


as of right now PA is giving www.beer.com a copy, so that's good.

[XThe NavigatorX]

being copyrighted is not the same as being listed in the library of congress. LOC will archive your book and register the copyright, as that's an offshoot of their responsibilities. But you can copyright anything. The copyright office and the library itself are two completely different entities. To be in the actual library, a publisher has to get approved, register the book before it comes out, and send in a copy. It's free (other than the cost of sending in the book itself), but they don't accept POD or self-published books, and as far as the library is concerned, PA books are both.

[jeffb42]

see I learn somethijng new everyday. I didn;'t know that. Thank you! (sorry for the typos... too much field research tonight :smokin )

also, I don't know if someone here or another thread I read tonight mentioned BUT, my password at PA's messageboard became invalid right after I posted that message.... They fixed it of course a day or two later... must have just been a glitch.0]

[tunskit]

Hmm, that glitch must have caught me too, Jeff. Apparently, it also extends to their email service, in regards to answering my question about why my password isn't working. I know why it isn't working, but I'm compelled to ask. :-)

Seriously, congrats on getting them to relent and send a copy. I'm sure it will help your sales tremendously.

[tunskit]

By the time I made it to that link, PA had deleted the thread. Could someone give me an update, please?
Thanks,
Kit

[DaveKuzminski]

Use this link to read what was posted: pub43.ezboard.com/fabsolu...1&stop=160 (http://pub43.ezboard.com/fabsolutewritefrm32.showMessageRange?topicID=3.top ic&start=141&stop=160)

[battlechaser]

Marky, I know they are not small presses.

I am just giving info about small presses as well.

[vstrauss]

Folks, don't get your hopes up about NBC and Dateline...Writer Beware has been contacted no less than four times in the past couple of years by various newsmagazines about doing stories on literary fraud. We've done interviews, sent documentation, put the reporters in touch with victims.

Three of the four segments fizzled before getting filmed--one after the reporter had done pretty extensive prep work, including victim interviews. One segment actually was filmed, but got bumped for a feature on the popularity of pork rinds. I think that pretty much says it all, in terms of how important the world at large thinks this issue is.

Sorry to sound cynical; I've just dealt with this a few too many times...along with Attorney General offices that couldn't care less, police officials and FBI agents who start investigations and then let them lapse "because there's no precedent", fraud investigations that are complete down to the tiniest piece of paperwork but the Powers That Be still won't move their butts to arrest the scumbag...If the Dateline story really does come off, I'll be the first to applaud.
But I'm not holding my breath.

- Victoria
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com/ (http://www.writerbeware.com/)

[DaveKuzminski]

I can't help but think how much damage a good TV expose could do after contacting some of the celebrities to show how their names were misused to mislead writers and then go into more detail by contacting those authors whose books were pulled after they voiced concerns. I hope enough of their aggrieved authors make contact with one or more of the investigative TV programs and the Maryland Attorney General.

[James D Macdonald]

Maybe not Dateline. How about Jerry Springer?

[marky48]

Victoria I know, when left to their own devices mainstream media heads straight for the small potatoes, and so does most of the general public, but I see a whole lot of movement in this sort of rip-off operation. I as I write this Brian Lamb on C-Span just got a call from PA author Rick Trusick who wrote a political economic thesis of sorts and is at present, "not doing much." I take that to mean he's unemployed.

"Who's your publisher?" Lamb asked.

"Publish America," he said.

"Who are they?"

"Oh..ah... they're an online publisher."

I think the story will run, but on which network is up for grabs. I sent it to all of them. If NBC has a producer who has a fake book coming out with them I'd say that doesn't bode well for them, but they did approach our JD fellow not the other way around. I realize I'm new to the fight but it looks like there's some serious movement from my seat.

And PA pulled the link to my website in minutes of someone posting it so more wouldn't go look. Check out the lady in the chair in Florida on the "snobbish witch" thread I warned them on, asking where did the link go?

And Tunskit are you still banned? Looks like you got in yesterday.

Do you think "Bushwhacked" by Molly Ivins coming out had anything to do with Fred Dungan's "Bushwhacked" being yanked from PA?

[marky48]

More trouble in authorville.

www.publishamerica.com/cg...n/8053.htm (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/main/8053.htm)

I wonder if reviewing your own book on Amazon is one the strategies PA recommends? Apparently "Midwest Reviews" thinks so.

This press release should attract attention.

www.prweb.com/releases/20...b84640.htm (http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/10/prweb84640.htm)

[tunskit]

I got in with a different username and password. I had registered for it months ago, but it never worked. About that time, I lost interest in posting, as I got busy meeting deadlines for my real publisher (:-) ), and forgot about having applied for one. I found it in my Publish America folder a couple of days ago, while I was reading through emails from them, hoping to find an out. I was curious to see if the account would work, and it did. I don't know for how long. Probably indefinitely, as long as I behave myself.

[Canada James]

Just so everyone is clear, I still think Marky is an idiot.

Now, with that, I have to address a crazy misconception that many PA authors fall prey to and wind up losing their shirt over.

Poorboy said:
"Furthermore, if I were to purchase books and sell them as self-published authors do, I could earn up to 30% on the retail price:"

The one thing that no PA author checks into is this: bookstores mark up their books at a minimum of 40%. That's standard. You may get a bookstore to go less, but if they do it's a rarity because they pity you. This is why PA's 20% discount to bookstores through Ingram discourages bookstores from stocking them. Never mind the "no returns policy", that 20% discount will kill your deal first.

If you want to consider the PA contract vs. self-publishing consider this: I marked up my self-published book at 70% ($10 retail Canadian) and still managed to walk away with 30% of the profit (bookstores took 40%). They had a returns policy (called commission - same basic deal, really) and I could get it online at every bookstore.

Don't think you can buy your books less 30% and make a profit selling them to bookstores. In a best-case scenario, you'll only wind up losing 10%.

C. James

[marky48]

That is a switch, but really, do you think a government scientist- writer twice your age is an idiot? I think you'd have a hard time drumming up votes for that. I've had readers write me telling about what a egomaniacal "full of himself" fool you are. But that's not a crime in a country with free speech.

That's why we have it. But those ideas have to stand on their merit. And read the PA threads closely. People are buying 500 copies at the discount for the very scam-point you just refuted. You should have self-published the current book as well, because this one, like mine, will be confiscated by the U.S. Courts. Too bad. That's the price of freedom.

[battlechaser]

The whole point of the "Bewares Board" is to uncover truths about what writers can face within their endeavors. (Factual information and your experiences)

This is a place where writers can count on to take what useful knowledge they can. If people don't agree with it, then that's their choice.

To totally inflict a sting to someone or something should be avoided, because your feelings should remain out of the content.

[James D Macdonald]

Marky, Canada James, could y'all keep that sort of stuff in the Take It Outside Board?

Thanks.

[James D Macdonald]

Never mind the "no returns policy", that 20% discount will kill your deal first.

That's why I, and several others, have been harping on the "non-standard discount" that PA offers as Yet Another Reason to stay Far Away from this particular publisher.

[James D Macdonald]

This is all good info for anyone thinking about self publishing.

Please don't mistake vanity publishing for self-publishing.

For far more details on how to tell the difference, check out <a href="http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2003_07_01_scrivenerserror_archive.html#1059577271 53045899" target="_new">Scrivener's Error</a>, a blog written by a practicing publishing lawyer.

[marky48]

Excellent advice and myth-busting from a fellow blogspotter.

[marky48]

There's a new case for you on the GAP thread.

[James D Macdonald]

Based on what I see there, it's a cooperative; the general public isn't invited to play, and the authors put in sweat equity.

Whether it's a good idea or a bad idea, time will tell. To me it looks more like Jack Chalker starting his own PoD press to put Jack Chalker titles back in print. Mr. Chalker may have been overly optimistic, but I don't think he was scamming himself.

[Canada James]

I'm so used to posting on a certain board it gets difficult to switch. I figured all gloves were off when you all started calling people "employees of PA."

Anyway,

James M., the problem with you harping about the "PA non-standard discount" is that you are wrong. This is where knowing the insides of the book sales industry helps.

PA has a standard book discount. It's Ingram that does not (with PA books), and because bookstores who don't have a relationship with PA will prefer to deal through Ingram what they will see is the short discount.

Now, as an author, you may tell people that PA has a "non-standard discount" but all one has to do is check out what PA offers to bookstores as a discount to see that you are wrong. Now they won't believe your other points either. (This is much the same as the editing argument where I suggested an explanation of editing was in order before convincing writers that PA doesn't edit.) Instead of saying that PA doesn't offer a standard discount (thereby assuming everyone understands how the publisher-bookstore relationship works) you would do much better to warn people that the way bookstores work is to order through Ingram and that company does not sell PA books at a standard discount. So although PA does offer a standard discount, their books will be available through the distributor at a short discount (and it is unlikely that bookstores will go through a publisher they've never heard of).

Even us young'uns have a thing to teach.

C. James

[reph]

Canada James wrote: "Even us young'uns have a thing to teach."

I have something to teach, too. Today's lesson goes like this: "'You are wrong' is an inflammatory phrase. It is best avoided in civil discourse."

[aka eraser]

It seems to me that whether the "non standard discount" applies to the bookstores, or to the supplier of the bookstores, don't make much nevermind.

It's still non standard and yet further proof (as if any were needed) that PA lies when it claims to be a traditional publisher.

[dogpile]

Canada, your premise is a good try, but you evidently don't know the industry like you think you do.

PA Does use a discount. There is no "standard", since each publisher is free to set their own. However, most set the discount at 50-55% so that they have a better rapport.

Now. You have a $20 cover price book. PA sells that from Lightning Source to Ingram at a 55% discount, making the selling price $9. (here is where the real stink is, in that this book cost $0.013 per page and $0.90 for the cover to print. Authors...figure how much you're REALLY getting ripped)

Now, Ingram takes the 55% discount and splits it in half, selling it to retailers for $14.50. This comes to a 27.5% discount for retailers. if you consider 55% the standard, then the 27.5% IS standard. This is why Amazon and BN buy direct from Lightning Source...since they can buy at the 55% discount and sell for less.

Anyone can get this information simply by going to www.lightningsource.com and calling one of the customer service numbers - then pretend that you are interested in becoming a publisher and asking questions. For the current cost of printing...write their customer service e-mail and ask...they'll send you a link. But for simplicity sake, here it is:

/www.lightningsource.com/...ricing.pdf (https://www.lightningsource.com/ops/files/pricing/USPricing.pdf)

I hope that clears up some of the confusion.

Also, please don't get the idea that I'm defending PA. I wouldn't do that if it meant saving my own life. In fact, here's an interesting key to bring up:

According to R.R. Bowker, a different ISBN MUST be issued to each different release version, be it e-book, hardback, paperback, etc. PA is currently in VIOLATION of law by producing e-books using the same ISBN as the print copies they have! If anyone questions me on this, I invite you to call Bowker at their number listed here:

www.isbn.org/standards/ho...isbnus.asp (http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/us/isbnus.asp)

PA can have their ISBN Prefixes stripped from them for violation of this. IF THIS WERE TO HAPPEN, EVERY SINGLE PA AUTHOR WOULD IMMEDIATELY BE RELEASED FROM THEIR CONTRACT!

Why? You ask? Simple. Without an ISBN, PA CANNOT sell books. Without an active ISBN, the books are considered out of print, which violates the terms of the contract.

So...bring this small fact up to the AG, BBB, and everyone else. You want to shut them down...here's the bullseye on their knees. Cut 'em off.

[marky48]

Nice work Dogpile. No one will accuse you of that. It has been suggested to me that lightning shouldn't extend credit to PA as they are currently doing en masse. Good point. Would they if these details were ponted out?

I've not checked out the e-book feature, I don't have it at PA, and only Meiners' book is in hardback, although the staff may have one as well. I should think the "at the publisher's discretion" for everything advertised in the headlines is also "nonstandard."

[dogpile]

Check their "Library". Then go to Bowker, call the number, and ASK them if it's permissible to give a trade paper AND an e-book the same ISBN. In fact, write down a couple of the ISBN's and ASK them whether it's assigned to a paperback or an adobe e-book. (Which, by the way...costs PA nothing to produce, and has no wholesale discount because it's not offered anywhere other than their site...unlike REPUTABLE publishers who offer their e-books through Ingram, Amazon, BN, etc.)

It's not...and they will tell you so.

Also...what other reason to give the same ISBN other than to sell paperbacks, and give the author royalty on the e-book...

Hmm...royalty on $9.00 at 8% is $0.72 per copy.
Royalty on a $5.95 e-book is $0.47 per copy.

Since the ISBN is the SAME...HOW would the author know that they're being ripped off?

PLEASE NOTE: I am not accusing anyone of doing this...merely stating a way that it CAN be done. I will relegate accusations to those who have actual proof.

[marky48]

No complaint from me. I confirmed it and reported the violation. I must say that I have a e-book version available with a POD house and it is not just a pdf file. It's MS Reader file. I don't know why only a subsample get this at PA. Possibly awarded to the strongest believers. The royalty records are simply not available online as with the other PODs. We don't know what they really are. I don't. They could certainly do what you say, but I have no proof of that.

Meiners' books have different ISBNs.

[dogpile]

(I thought I posted this once)

Actually, Adobe is fast becoming the preferred version...since it crosses over between MAC's and PC's...and is also workable on most hand-held products.

But that's not important. Take any 20 publishers who publish e-books. Are their titles available online in the big stores like Amazon? Or are they only available on their own website? If they publish paperback or hardcover...do the different versions have different ISBN'S??

Find the ones which have their e-books in the online stores - and have different ISBN's - and you'll start seeing glimpses of the publishers trying to earn a modicum of respect in the traditional community...provided they have a fair contract, accept returns, and behave otherwise in a traditional manner.

[marky48]

That may be true but PODs i.e. vanity self-publish presses don't list the e-book versions outside of the home store either. At least mine isn't at Amazon although it used to be in the begining ca. 2000. None have returns and neither does PA. You're right there has to be two different ISBNs. That's a key point.

I just checked a Xlibris. As of Oct. 1, 2003 ebooks, recently offered pdf at the homestore only, very different from its inception, has ceased. I can't check if they were separate or not. The royalty and pricing is found here. Page count pricing is identical to PA. Rights are another matter. I have those.

[dogpile]

I did some research over the weekend, since I had to work.

There is one small publisher that I found who takes returns, lists their titles as "AC" with Bowker (This tells Bowker catalogue customers that the listing is an active record. PA and others list them as POD, which simply means - PUBLISH-ON-DEMAND). It's called Winterwolf Publishing (they really must be new). I checked into it and even the two books they have out in print and e-book each have a different ISBN for each format. I don't know much more about them without writing directly.

[marky48]

Publish and print are synonymous. Winterwolf appears to be a new entry supported by some I have heard of, but the jury there is still out. None of these PODs have returns.

[dogpile]

Nope, have to disagree with you...

There is a HUGE difference between Publish and Print. Would you consider Penguin, Putnam, Zebra, Pinnacle, Random house, Simon & Schuster POD publishers? Yet, if you call and ask, they will tell you that they do utilize Print-On-Demand for short-run or low-demand titles.

Now, iUniverse, 1stBooks, Xlibris...all are Publish-On-Demand and I can tell you that (as a library acquisitions clerk) the chances of getting a publish-on-demand book in a library is about as thin as paper...UNLESS the author is local. Also, 99% of newspapers won't even cover the release of a publish-on-demand title.

So yes, there is a difference. As far as this Winterwolf goes...I'll do some checking and let you know what I find out.

[marky48]

All true, except that is, the imaginary difference between print and publish. "Publish" has an intitial date of publication,i.e. made available to the public. And "print" is when sold, regardless of who uses it and when or why. PA makes the same distinction. There is big difference between a real traditional publishing house printing off a copy of a real print-run title and one that is only printed when bought and paid for; usually by the author. Publish involves more than coverting a pdf file at lightning. They're not the same thing. It's the publisher that counts. POD-based business operations are obvious for professionals to spot.


It makes me wonder exactly who you really are. Internal saboteur? I think I have a clue but I'll hang on to it just now. You've provided good tips here. We thank you.

[marky48]

Again kicked down the road for convenience.

"Hello,

BN.COM does not stock POD books unless the sales are such that warehouse stock is warranted. The number of titles that fit that bill is minute. Yes major publishers use digital printing but not in the sense that Publish America does. Random, Simon etc, actually hold stock of books in their warehouse opposed to sending a file over to Lightening source to print.

Publish America may not be a typical vanity press since they do more, however neither are they a traditional publisher. Barnes and Noble stores do not generally stock POD books, that is an antithesis to the very meaning of print on demand. Once in a while, there is a pod title that will sell very well and the stores may make an exception and carry the title. That, however, is up to the store.

As taken from the BN website:

Print-on-demand titles: with over one million titles already in print, and another 50,000 or more published every year, we obviously cannot carry every book that is published. Indeed, the key to print-on-demand technology is that it enables publishers to keep a vast number of titles in print and available without stocking inventory. Print-on-demand titles will continue to be featured on the Barnes & Noble.com website, and available for customer orders in our stores."

And you'll note that nowhere does BN mention "Publish-on-demand."

[dogpile]

All I know is what the guidelines are for us here at the library I work for. (Did you mean Saboteur??)

Our instructions and guidelines state that the difference herein is whether the author paid any money up front...which is what is considered Publish-On-Demand, or Subsidy Publishing...commonly known as Vanity Publishing. This, by our standards, is not publishing, since anyone with the right amount of money can have anything published, no matter how good or awful it is. Our library freely accepts Print-On-Demand Books, although we are not approached as much by small-press authors and publishers. The only reason I am aware of the publisher I mentioned is because our staff received a letter, inquiring about potential interest in our library carrying their titles.

[James D Macdonald]

Printing is not publishing.

For Dogpile:

See also Wildside Press.

[dogpile]

I apologize, our head librarian just corrected me....

We DO accept Publish-On-Demand books by local authors, provided they are donated. Our policy is not to order them.

Sorry for my error.

[dogpile]

My apologies James, you are correct.

Please understand (as I mentioned) that I based my statement on the letter we received yesterday. I admit, i was deficient in researching any other possible venues. However, please note that Wildside states they are not in the market for new authors. Also, I question if they market or if they accept returns.

[marky48]

There is no such thing.

[dogpile]

No such thing as what? I don't understand your statement.

[James D Macdonald]

Wildside both accepts returns, and markets.

They have on occassion accepted new authors. For example, Vera Nazarian's novel, Tales of the Compass Rose, was a first novel, not previously published.

[marky48]

Around here publish on demand is the same as print on demand. There is no difference. Read BN statement; it's not mentioned. It is a distinction so far that only PA staff and writers make to separate PA from PODs. That is why your statement is suspect. I've had the argument repeatedly; with them. Everyone here has.

[marky48]

"To be brief: Don't trust them [Publish america]and it's self publishing in another guise.

Ah, but they publish and don't charge you, you say. But they do, they do. You have to buy your book off them don't you, and usually these are about the only copies they sell.

As for publishing? Well, to be honest they create a simple cover and a pdf file for POD - That's not publishing, really."

Really, this astute post that I'll not name the source for says it all.

[dogpile]

James, I do owe you an apology. I certainly did not research enough.

I guess the bottom line is that there are hundreds, even thousands of publishers out there...large and small. The hard part is weeding through the mess and finding the ones who truly do intend to be honorable.

Would you not consider that a true statement?

[James D Macdonald]

Printing is not publishing.

Printing gives you one book, or a case, or a carload, of books.

Publishing involves the whole panoply of editing, art direction, marketing, distribution, and so on, and so endlessly on. Printing is a part of publishing, but not all of it.

Digital printing is a technology; it involves a Xerox DocuTech or similar machine.

Print on demand (which some people call "publish on demand") involves operating that DocuTech machine if and only if a paid order is already in hand. This is a business model.

[Canada James]

"PA Does use a discount. There is no "standard", since each publisher is free to set their own. However, most set the discount at 50-55% so that they have a better rapport."

Wrong again. It may be inflamatory to point out when someone is, but you are. Give me 20 books to look up and I'll tell you what we got as a discount. I work at a bookstore, I've worked at the three largest in Canada!

Publishers will offer better than standard discounts to bookstores that have a long-standing relationship with them. But if you were to open a bookstore tomorrow, TOR is not going to offer you 50%+ discount. (By the way, PA does offer the same 50% discount, it depends on volume purchased. Just like everyone else.)

To illustrate, I had James Mcd's book, Knight's Wyrd, ordered in. We got a whoppin' 42% discount on it. And that's a major author and a major publisher!

Standard discounts start at 40%. They climb based on volume, it's no different at PA.

James

[James D Macdonald]

Yes, indeed. There are thousands of publishers, large and small.

Finding the right publisher for you is a problem. Fortunately there are guides and guidelines along the way. Honorable intent isn't enough -- results also matter.

New writers are dreadfully vulnerable. They're as cute as a basket of golden retriever puppies, all eager and excited and certain that you're friendly. Alas, there are hard-eyed scammers in the world who will take advantage of them.

[marky48]

Amen.

[James D Macdonald]

Canada James,

I'm always eager to learn. Are you saying that PA offers the same discount to Ingram that Random House offers to Ingram?

If they do, how does the discount that Ingram offers to bookstores on Random House books differ from the discount that Ingram offers to bookstores on PA books?

What do you suggest is the reason for those differences?

[James D Macdonald]

BN.COM dropped all their e-book listings as of 09SEP03. I suspect that means that sales were so low that they were losing money supporting them.

This accords well with what I've heard elsewhere; that even major print best-sellers are lucky to break the three-figure mark in their e-book versions.

[Canada James]

James M.:
"I'm always eager to learn. Are you saying that PA offers the same discount to Ingram that Random House offers to Ingram?:

You've changed the topic again, James M. Our discussion was PA's discount to bookstores, which is the industry standard.
I don't work for Ingram and am no more privy to their discounts than are you. I can tell you that your publisher gave us a 42% discount on your book, does that put them out of line? No, because 40% is standard. Had we ordered 100, we would have gotten better (same with PA). Unless we ordered 100 through Ingram, in which case your book would have remained at a 42% discount.

Think about it.

C. James

[James D Macdonald]

I remain eager to keep the lines of dialog open.

What's PA's discount to bookstores?

[DaveKuzminski]

I gave Popper20 over a week to name just one book released by PublishAmerica (and not by a staff member) that is available nationally in book stores. That lack of proof by him seems to speak for itself.

[dogpile]

Dave, it wasn't fair to give the poor soul an impossible task. As our Head Librarian (my boss) can tell you, even libraries shun PA because why should we pay the 40% discount to order a copy or two of their books and pay higher than the cover price of other books, printed by the same printer, the same size and page length? So, unless the author is local, we're not carrying it. Unless, of course, about a thousand people come in here asking for it...and there aren't that many people IN this town!

[marky48]

Well in this case PA dissed an actual lawyer who fell for the spiel. Not good on a resume, but an epipheny nonetheless.

"Dear Info Center...

Is it your policy to delete everything you don't agree with on your message board? Whoever you have working that board needs to rethink his position because clearly they are being unfair.

Censorship played out many years ago.

We, as Author's do have a right to voice our opinion about your not keeping us informed about an upcoming event, or in my case about collaborating on the latest PA book, just as it is your right to dispute my opinion. It's a' shame that my message was deleted in its entirety... It makes me wonder if there was some truth to my original claim.

In any event, this letter is simply an FYI to you... Since I was unable to respond directly to the Authors on your board (who by the way have a right to know) I Bcc at least fifty of them with regards to this letter and since I'm so offended, I probably won't stop there.

I'm not sure how Willem Meiners would feel about my concerns; but I'm sure BBB, and perhaps Predators and Editors would like to know."

[DaveKuzminski]

Regarding Popper20, I simply asked for evidence backing up the claim that PublishAmerica has books out in multiple stores of a national book store chain and not in just one store of the chain because of a special order.

As to the lawyer's letter, Preditors & Editors is certainly interested. We'll even furnish space for his comments. P&E has always had a policy of being willing to post opinions including those that are not favorable toward P&E.

[marky48]

More twists and turns in discount land. I'll not had more.

www.publishamerica.com/cg...n/8091.htm (http://www.publishamerica.com/cgi-bin/pamessageboard/data/main/8091.htm)